Could local approach from the Heartland help solve your community challenge?
// By Jacqueline Brennan
America’s Heartland is bursting with new approaches to some of our country’s toughest challenges, and they just might work in your community too.
Take Resilient Chicago, for example, a new effort recently announced by the city to build a more sustainable and resilient future for its residents. Resilient Chicago is part of the larger 100 Resilient Cities, created by The Rockefeller Foundation to help cities worldwide become more resilient to 21st century challenges – including natural disasters like earthquakes, fires, and floods, as well as high unemployment, overburdened public transportation, food and water shortages, and violence.
Resilient Chicago includes 50 initiatives focused on reducing disparities among the city’s neighborhoods, addressing the root causes of crime and violence, ensuring the availability of key infrastructure, and fostering engaged, prepared, and cohesive communities.
This multiyear partnership includes local residents, civic and community leaders, and more than 40 leaders from the public, private, non-profit, and philanthropic sectors, organized on three pillars: “Strong Neighborhoods, Robust Infrastructure, and Prepared Communities.”
The city’s first action under Resilient Chicago was to join the Sierra Club in announcing a plan to incorporate 100 percent renewable energy in all community buildings by 2035, and make the Chicago Transit Authority’s bus fleet all-electric by 2040.
You’ll learn about other innovative ideas to address the country’s toughest problems at Upswell Chicago in November, when changemakers from the Chicago area join others in the social good space to exchange new and creative solutions. Whatever your mission or challenge, rest assured you’ll leave with fresh approaches and a renewed sense of commitment to changing the community you serve for the better.
