Chelsea is one of 35 Champion Cities selected this week as finalists in the 2018 U.S. Mayors Challenge, a nationwide competition that encourages city leaders to uncover bold, inventive ideas that confront the toughest problems cities face. These 35 urban innovations rose to the top of a competitive pool of more than 320 applications. The Champion Cities will now begin a 6-month testing phase where they will conduct public prototypes of their ideas with grant funding of up to $100,000 per city, a new addition to the Competition this year. The Mayors Challenge returns to the U.S. as one of the first investment in the American Cities Initiative, an effort to help U.S. cities generate innovation and advance policy.
Chelsea now advances to the six-month “Test, Learn, and Adapt” phase of the competition. Cities will refine their ideas during this process with up to $100,000, as well as personalized support from innovation experts, to test and begin building support for their urban innovations and submit a new application in August 2018. In October, four cities will receive $1 million awards and one will receive a grand prize of $5 million to bring their ideas to life.
“We received hundreds of bold and creative ideas from cities around the country in response to the 2018 Mayors Challenge, and these 35 really stood out for their potential to improve people’s lives. The next six months are a great opportunity for the cities to test their ideas and make them even more innovative and effective,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and three-term Mayor of New York City.
The 35 Champion Cities performed the best against four key criteria – vision, potential for impact, implementation plan, and potential to spread to other cities. A prestigious selection committee Co-Chaired by Former Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and Former Xerox Chairman & CEO Ursula Burns and comprising distinguished policy experts, artists, academics, business executives and social innovation leaders assessed the applications.
Chelsea proposes to scale up its “Hub” crime prevention strategy. The “Hub” is a team of community and government agencies that meet weekly, identify individuals or families facing high levels of risk for crime, and immediately connect them to the services they need. Over the next six months, the Hub leaders will work with the Bloomberg team to formalize, sustain and grow the pilot, as well as build data capacity to learn, adapt, and direct limited resources towards crime prevention. Like the Canadian Hub model, on which the Chelsea Hub model is based, Chelsea expects that the Hub will readily transfer to other communities in Massachusetts and the U.S. The broader aim is for government, community and social services agencies to move from working in silos toward a collaborative effort to more effectively improve community well-being and safety.
“We’re very excited about being a finalist in the Bloomberg Challenge. We hope this opportunity will allow us to continue our work to alleviate the root causes of violence, poverty and homelessness in Chelsea, and connect residents to the help they need,” said Tom Ambrosino, Chelsea City Manager.
The 2018 Mayors Challenge builds on the success of previous Bloomberg-sponsored Challenges in the U.S. (2013), Europe (2014), and Latin America and the Caribbean (2016). For more information, visit HYPERLINK “http://www.mayorschallenge.bloomberg.org” mayorschallenge.bloomberg.org and @BloombergCities on Twitter and Instagram.