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Cities Are Boosting the Economy by Rewarding Those Who Shop Local

Sakshi Udavant

June 03, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Akron, Ohio

Akron, Ohio, is “creating a circular economy” in hopes of helping small businesses and encouraging residents to shop locally. A city-sponsored app, Akronite, is used by consumers to make purchases and earn reward points which can be redeemed for discounts and other perks. The app’s success is clear in the high return on investment, which shows $9 generated for every dollar invested by the local government. Other cities across the country are also adopting the initiative, tweaking it to their own communities.

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Boise Is Tapping Into Free, Sustainable Energy - and Other Cities Could Follow Suit

Shiva Nagaraj

June 03, 2021 |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Boise, Idaho

In the late 1800s a local water company found hot springs in Boise. They decided to build pipes and transport the water to some nearby homes and towns to heat them, creating a geothermal heating system. In the 1980s, the city replicated this model at a larger scale. Water from a naturally hot aquifer flowed through pipes heating 100 large buildings Downtown, equivalent to more than 6 million square feet. Geothermal heating is completely clean, it requires no fossil fuels. Currently, there's only 23 geothermal districts in America. However, one study estimates that by 2050 there could be 17,500.

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This Nonprofit Eliminated a Simple Barrier Keeping New Orleans Teens From Their Summer Internships

Emily Nonko

May 27, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

Onerous paperwork and required legal documents keep many youth - especially those not living with legal guardians - from taking part in city internships, so YouthForce NOLA worked with the city to pilot an internship program with fewer barriers. The streamlined application included workarounds for common issues, like allowing public school records to certify residency, accepting approval from non-legal guardians, and providing a checklist with exactly what records they need and how they can get them. The added support reduced anxiety among the youth and significantly increased retention in the internships.

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People in Solitary Confinement and Volunteers Team Up to Garden, Imagine a World Without Prisons

Roshan Abraham

May 27, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

The Solitary Gardens project started in New Orleans and has been copied in multiple other places as a combination art exhibit and therapeutic link between incarcerated people and the outside world. People on both sides of the prison walls collaborate in pairs to design a garden that grows flowers and herbs chosen by the incarcerated person. The gardens match the tiny dimensions of a solitary-confinement cell. The healing herbs are used to help others, and the exercise overall gives incarcerated people a sense of connection to the earth, part of the project's prison-abolition message.

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Young People Are Digitally Rebuilding Tulsa's Black Wall Street

Kristi Eaton

May 26, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Urban Coders Guild provides STEM education opportunities to underrepresented communities and is working with local students to build websites for the businesses destroyed during the Tulsa Race Massacre. While none of the businesses operate today, the program builds awareness of the massacre while also teaching students coding skills to build websites. The course is also considered a “prep” course for the future because it teaches students how to interact with others as well as listen to and accept feedback from others. The group partnered with Tulsa Community College students to create the content and logos.

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This Federal Program to Aid Restaurants and Street Vendors Is Working

Oscar Perry Abello

May 25, 2021 |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

In just its first few weeks of existence, the U.S. Small Business Administration's Restaurant Revitalization Fund approved more than $6 billion in aid to 38,000 restaurants and other food vendors suffering economically from pandemic shutdowns. The aid program's rollout was more effective than the Paycheck Protection Program in 2020, in that it successfully targeted businesses owned by women, veterans, and "socially or economically disadvantaged people." It was helped in outreach to businesses by organizations such as Mission Economic Development Agency and New York's Street Vendor Project.

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In Nashville, Using Loan Guarantees to Fund Affordable Housing Preservation

Jared Brey

May 25, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Nashville, Tennessee

Urban Housing Solutions, a Nashville nonprofit housing developer, made a $19.2 million investment to preserve 165 apartments for people earning in the mid-30s. In a tight and expensive housing market where aggressive investors often outflank nonprofits seeking to provide lower-cost housing, UHS financed the purchase with a bank loan that will earn the lender state tax credits and that was secured by four philanthropic foundations' funds as collateral. The transaction was a first in Nashville for the use of community investment tools to preserve lower-cost housing.

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San Francisco's Filipino Cultural District Keeping Hope Alive After a Tough Year

Oscar Perry Abello

May 18, 2021 |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

“UNDSCVRD SF," funded by the SOMA Community Stabilization Fund and produced by the nonprofit Kultivate Labs, is a night market held once a month from July to November that features a range of Filipino vendors. There were over 35,000 attendees in 2019 and it generated $300,000 in sales. It also serves as a testing ground to select businesses for Kultivate Labs’ SEED Accelerator Program and grantees for the SOMA Fund. The former provides bootcamps and one-on-one support for Filipino-owned businesses that are located in, or would like to be located in, a permanent space within the SOMA cultural district.

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An Initiative to Improve Street Safety through Public Art

Kate Elizabeth Queram

May 17, 2021 |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Kansas City, Missouri

Street murals and innovative safety features have transformed a dangerous intersection. The Kansas City project not only improved the aesthetic, it also decreased noise pollution, pedestrian crossing distances, and vehicle speeds by 45 percent.

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How to Start (and Run) a Bank That Puts People and Planet Over Profits

Oscar Perry Abello

May 17, 2021 |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

San Francisco-based New Resource Bank was launched with environmental sustainability lending as its niche. But it pursued easier profits for a time, risking its survival and mission until a new CEO turned its fortunes around with a laser focus on the original mission, bolstered by learning its borrowers' businesses intimately. The bank doubled in size and merged with a larger bank, making itself a model for mission-driven lending in such businesses as solar, wind energy, and organic foods – and by attracting institutional depositors and investors as interested in social change as they are in profits.

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