NEW ORLEANS – Today, Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced that the City of New Orleans has been selected to join the City Accelerator, a $3 million program of the Citi Foundation and Living Cities to help 11 cities in the United States pilot leading innovations in local government.
As part of the City Accelerator’s newest cohort, New Orleans will receive up to $170,000 in financial and in-kind support to expand community engagement efforts – particularly related to preventative health care – that help drive economic opportunities for low-income residents.
“As a city, we want to use innovative techniques that help ensure all residents are taking part in our community’s revival,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu. “From murder reduction to blight, we have been recognized for the ways we’ve engaged residents to improve service delivery and achieve results. Now, with City Accelerator’s help, we will be able to engage our city’s most vulnerable populations because every life matters. I am grateful to Citi Foundation and Living Cities for this opportunity, which will help us continue improving the way we do business. It’s just the latest example of how New Orleans has become the nation’s most immediate laboratory for innovation and change representing the new New Orleans way of getting things done.”
Over 59,000 individuals are currently enrolled in the Greater New Orleans Community Health Connection (GNOCHC), a Medicaid waiver that provides coverage to working-class residents in Orleans, Plaquemines, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes. With City Accelerator support, the New Orleans Health Department (NOHD) will further identify and engage these individuals in utilizing preventative care services—thus improving the overall health outcomes for the region.
First Deputy Mayor & CAO Andy Kopplin said, “Leveraging behavioral economics and analytics, we’ll test and evaluate different interventions to see what works in terms of helping eligible families to take advantage of our health clinics and improve their own health. Under the Mayor’s leadership, we’re continuing to bring together partners from the public and private sectors, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, and the faith-based community to make lasting reforms to city government, to invest intelligently and in key priority areas, and to get results for the people of New Orleans.”
Oliver Wise, director of the New Orleans Office of Performance & Accountability, said, “This is just the latest example of how the City will use data analytics to provide more efficient City services, to track results and to engage with residents in targeted way that maximizes results.”
Over the next 18 months, the City will work to develop the systems, skills and knowledge to incorporate innovative approaches to community engagement into its normal course of business. The City will also work with 504HealthNet – the regional consortium of community health centers – to develop and implement the program. 504HealthNet is an umbrella organization for over 50 clinics in the four parish area that see patients regardless of their ability to pay.
Charlotte Parent, director of the New Orleans Health Department, said, “Civic engagement is a critical part of public health: a healthy community is an engaged one. With the City Accelerator’s support, we will be able to improve health outcomes in New Orleans by helping residents better understand ways to access vital health services. This, in turn, will help reduce the overall health care costs for everyone in the New Orleans community. We’ll also be working hand-in-hand with 504HealthNet on health access issues and will be partnering with them to design and implement engagement strategies as part of this project.”
Susan Todd, Executive Director of 504HealthNet said, “This project is really about giving people the tools to get and stay healthy. Making progress on the use of preventative care means a healthier—and happier—New Orleans. These GNOCHC participants are working families who have to make tough decisions about their health every day. Through this work with City Accelerator we hope to make sure that those decisions are a little easier.”
Ben Hecht, President and CEO of Living Cities, said, “When it comes to addressing poverty in American cities, the pace of progress is simply too slow and the change too small. In order to achieve dramatically better results for low-income people, local efforts must be shaped, as least in part, by the people they are intended to benefit. This isn’t just about better policy – it’s about reinvigorating our democracy.”
Ed Skyler, Citi’s Executive Vice President for Global Public Affairs and Chairman of the Citi Foundation, said, “Cities have an opportunity to address the complex challenges that come with a growing population by tapping into the ingenuity and lived expertise of their residents to find innovative solutions. The City Accelerator is already helping municipal governments improve services and programs in a way that will lead to positive measureable results for residents.”
The City Accelerator allows selected U.S. cities to develop models for innovation that generate economic opportunities for low-income populations and help municipalities run more effectively. Participating cities benefit from ongoing interaction with leading practitioners from around the country and share lessons learned to advance progress.
Eric Gordon, Director of the Engagement Lab and Associate Professor at Emerson College, who is leading the first cohort, said, “Each of these cities is focusing on a pivotal problem of our time, and they are eager to find ways to bring their residents into the work of solving those problems. I’m especially excited by their openness to new ideas and willingness to think outside the box.”
In September 2014, the Citi Foundation and Living Cities selected three cities – Louisville, Ky., Nashville, Tenn. and Philadelphia, Pa. – to be among Cohort 1 marking the first three participants in the City Accelerator project.
Ten cities applied for Cohort 2, and seven, including Albuquerque, Atlanta, Baltimore, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Seattle, were selected as finalists. The seven finalists recorded video pitches that were posted online at Governing.com for public review, comment and rating.
The City of New Orleans partnered with Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI) who donated production of the City’s video submission, which was instrumental in its selection.
Joseph Kimbrell, CEO of the Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI), said, “LPHI is proud to have worked so closely with the City of New Orleans and so many other partners to bring this grant to our city. We work to bridge sectors and catalyze policy and systems change to improve population health, and this multi-sector partnership is a prime example of how working together will better the health of our community members.”
Over 12,000 people viewed all the videos, rated them, and/ or shared them on social media. The finalists also participated in a convening of the finalists, at which each presented the problems they sought to solve and explored solutions beyond what they had initially proposed. The strength of the finalists’ proposals, their focus on both compelling projects and systemic change, their participation in the convening, and public input on their video pitches were all considered in selecting the cohort cities. Eventually, five cities were chosen, including Albuquerque, Atlanta, Baltimore, New Orleans and Seattle.
Living Cities will capture learnings from the work of the cohort for use by the broader field. The Governing Institute, with separate support from the Citi Foundation, will provide ongoing coverage of the learnings coming out of the cohort cities and related innovation efforts in other cities in a dedicated section of their website at www.governing.com/cityaccelerator.
The City Accelerator builds on the Project on Municipal Innovation (PMI), a collaboration between Living Cities and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. PMI convenes mayoral chiefs-of-staff and policy directors from 35 cities across the US to discuss challenges facing their municipalities, including inefficiency in city government and inequality. The City Accelerator helps translate dialogue into action by giving cities seed funding to adopt many of the ideas discussed during the PMI sessions.
With a focus on municipal innovation, the City Accelerator also reinforces Citi and the Citi Foundation’s commitment to help cities become more efficient and empower citizens by providing access to services that enhance livability and prosperity.
