CivicLab

The Southwest Florida Talent Hub - led by Collaboratory - has just received $19.3M from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address environmental challenges related to disaster preparedness. The funding will increase community resilience, reduce pollution and build community capacity. The funding announcement is further testament to the group's ability to convene the private, public, and social sectors to address complex social challenges. In recent years, they were awarded a Good Jobs Challenge award, several private foundation grants to address employment gaps, and have served as a lead for recovery efforts after recent hurricanes. This EPA award will support the establishment of four resilience hubs that provide supplies or social services residents need every day. These spaces can transition in a disaster to provide critical information, emergency support and health supplies to the surrounding communities.

Congrats to our Building Rural Community Systems partner for receiving this historic award!

We’ve successfully completed two days of immersive Stakeholder Engagement and Mapping Workshop with Civic Lab! Through hands-on sessions and real-life examples, we explored a relationship-based approach to systems-building, helping us shape a clear path to advance key goals in our 2030 strategic plan. Huge thanks to CivicLab for facilitating this impactful workshop—equipping us to better engage, connect, and collaborate across Racine and Kenosha County. A special thank you to The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread for hosting us in their beautiful conference space, and to the dedicated representatives from Racine Unified School District, Building Our Future , University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Gateway Technical College, City of Racine, Racine Public Library, United Way of Racine County, Microsoft, College Possible, and Racine Area Manufacturers and Commerce. We’re excited to take this work forward together! #CommunityCollaboration #RacineCounty #2030Vision #SystemsChange #StakeholderMapping #CivicLab

Thank you Higher Expectations, The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, and Wingspread Retreat & Executive Conference Center for hosting us these past few days. There is meaningful systems work happening in Racine and Kenosha counties in areas including education to employment, early literacy, post secondary access, data literacy, and diversifying community leadership. Together, we walked through how these teams might use the Stakeholder Engagement Process and its associated tools to co-create system strategies that improve social outcomes. Most importantly, this group made sure the right folks were in the room today to not ask how to make programs more efficient, but rather, how might they work together to make their system more effective. Talent Hubs

The good folks in Albuquerque are hard at work tackling some very complex social systems. Reducing absenteeism, improving college and career readiness, redesigning how philanthropic dollars are distributed with greater attention to equity, and establishing the right balance between a common framework universal to the regional that allows county-level nuance… and these were tasks of only three of many teams. I’m very grateful to have been working with this group dating back to 2015. We just wrapped up a 1.5 day Stakeholder Engagement Process lab for three teams convened by United Way of North Central New Mexico. Several staff, community partners, and city agencies joined the training to add strength to their collaborative methodologies, and break away from programmatic thinking. Thank you Martha Hughes and Valerie Ingram for inviting CivicLab into your work. While there was never any doubt, each time we work closely with you, it affirms why your partnership earned the Talent Hub designation.

A heartfelt thank you to all the members of the Lee County Continuum of Care, Lee County Human and Veteran Services and the Southwest Florida Coalition to End Homelessness who joined us for an incredibly productive workshop. With John Burnett and Dakota Pawlicki from CivicLab we explored the Stakeholder Engagement Process, diving deep into a collective impact framework that will foster strong collaboration. The energy, insights, experience, and commitment everyone brought were truly inspiring! We’re excited to take the ideas we incubated during the workshop and move them into meaningful action for our community. This is just the beginning. With our shared dedication, we will drive real change for people across the Housing Stability Spectrum in Lee County. #SWFLHome #CollectiveImpact #LeeCountyHousing #StakeholderEngagement #HousingSolutions

If you’re attending #EdFunders24, join Kirstin Yeado of #AscendiumEP and Joe Ross and Heath Grimes of Reach University to explore the benefits of teacher apprenticeship programs in rural communities on Oct. 16 at 2:15 pm. CT. Additionally, on Oct. 18 at 9 a.m. CT, Kirstin will discuss with leaders from Greater Texas Foundation, Economic Mobility Systems, CivicLab, and Collegiate Edu-Nation their organizations’ approaches to building pathways that support rural learners. https://bit.ly/3NlJnNu, https://bit.ly/40iWAhR

The CivicLab Systemness Leadership Academy was a wonderful opportunity and experience! After a year of training, I have graduated and can now be called a Systems Thinker and Leader 🥳🥳 Thank you WCC for this opportunity!

Communities across America are working on ending homelessness. Those that are finding success are not using one solution. They know a complex problem cannot be solved by a single thing. Instead, they are creating an ecosystem of approaches that fundamentally changes the way the public, private, and nonprofit sectors work together. It's been a real pleasure to spend two days with the Home Coalition in southwest Florida. Convened by Collaboratory, a group of city and county leaders, outreach workers, nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, and others are finding ways to shift how housing support systems function for people. It's deep work...hard work... and it takes time, but this group of folks is very ready and willing to change how they operate to make an impact for their community. If your community is attempting to tackle homelessness, and you're tired of the same old band-aid approaches that haven't worked, take a moment to explore this coalition.

Grateful to have had time to visit with Expect More Tehama at Shasta College’s Community Leadership Center in downtown Redding. Nothing like a wide-ranging strategy session about employee engagement with nine of your closest partners! As one of the ten rural partnerships selected for CivicLab’s Building Rural Community Systems program, Expect More Tehama is activating several system strategies across the education to employment ecosystem. I can’t offer many specifics yet - all groups are still in the process of finalizing collaborative work plans - but there is a lot of potential and uniqueness in this group’s vision for the future. While out west, I had a chance to catch up with a few members of CivicLab’s Systemness Leadership academy. Chief among them are folks leading work on behalf of The McConnell Foundation. Great to be with you Lesley Jessee, Jesica Rhone, Kelly Salter, and David Tanner. And thanks for putting us up at the guest house! One last aside - there’s nothing like visiting my great friend and partner Kate Mahar in her own community. But it’s made so much better when we get out of the meeting room and have a picnic by one of the many lakes in the region. It’s not new advice, but it is good advice…. Have your next meeting outside (if you can)!