September 28, 2009

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) comes with unprecedented promise for cities across the country – and unprecedented challenges. The Act channels billions of new dollars through formula and competitive grants to cities and their local organizations that play an important role in helping to execute valuable stimulus projects. The Act’s short-term funding requires great speed and transparency, and the public spotlight raises the expectations of the public.

Facing ARRA’s inherent challenges and transformative opportunities, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley worked with Chicago’s philanthropic community to create a unique public-private partnership that would help Chicago deliver on the promise of the President Obama’s Recovery Act. “The federal program is a huge undertaking, but one that provides us with enormous opportunities and we are making sure that Chicago receives the greatest possible benefit,” Daley said.

Local civic leader, Terry Mazany, President and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, mobilized Chicago foundations to form a Recovery Partnership – a collaborative public-philanthropic effort to promote transparency of decisions and investments, streamline city processes, support nonprofits implementing stimulus programs, and develop sustainable, lasting legacy.

“This is an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of existing strategic plans as well as to realize the promise of the social innovations that we have been investing in and I think it will build stronger ties of collaboration between city agencies and foundations,” said Mazany.

Launching the Recovery Partnership posed its own challenges by encompassing 227 individuals from 50 foundations and every city department and sister agency, including the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Housing Authority. Chicago’s business community responded, lending management skills to form a highly organized public-philanthropic-private coordinating team. Mayer Brown and LEK Consulting provide pro bono staff through the Civic Consulting Alliance, a nonprofit that creates and manages public-private partnerships. These “on-loan” professionals work with city staff to manage nine strategy teams across funding areas.

“The Recovery Partnership is tangible evidence of our commitment to transparency and sound management of the federal funds that are doing so much to improve the quality of life for all Chicagoans,” Daley said.

Prior to ARRA, Chicago pioneered municipal transparency in many ways, from online contracts and payments to streaming city council meetings on the internet. The Recovery Partnership views ARRA as an opportunity to raise the bar even further.

More than fifty team meetings promoted transparency goals by bringing partners to the city table to provide input, align their own resources with stimulus priorities and to look for opportunities for collaboration. For example, to enhance ARRA foreclosure prevention funds, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation funded public outreach to help thousands of families access the benefits.

In addition, public school youth on ARRA stipends are photographing and videoing how stimulus affects individuals and communities. Their work is supported by The Joyce Foundation and supervised by the nonprofit Free Spirit Media.

Lastly, Chicago’s Recovery website tracks awards, projects, grant applications and jobs created, as well as an online newsletter and RSS feeds.

Chicago relies on nonprofits to assist in the delivery of social services, as do most cities, and typically re-grants federal funds to 700 nonprofits on an annual basis. ARRA was not typical, requiring nonprofits to respond to RFPs in just days and to begin work twice as fast as usual. The Recovery Partnership will help the city reach new non-profits, reduce red tape to pay service providers faster, and support organizations that are not equipped financially or administratively to deal with the ARRA’s speedy requirements.

In addition, Donors Forum brought new nonprofits to the table to learn about grant opportunities. With support from The Chicago Community Trust, the Donors Forum hosted information sessions and how-to workshops, tailored to specific grants.

The Partnership for New Communities led several foundations to form an external review panel to speed the review of a record number of applications.

MBA students from Kellogg School of Management and Chicago Booth, managed by the Civic Consulting Alliance, redesigned the city’s contracting and invoicing process, cutting processing time in half, thereby transferring money to nonprofits faster and speeding up the delivery of services to those most in need.

The Recovery Partnership is tangible evidence of Chicago’s commitment to transparency and sound management of ARRA funds that will provide economic opportunity and improve the quality of life for all Chicagoans.

Shared services for government agencies are advancing under ARRA, and in Chicago, the Recovery Partnership launched the first citywide database across the city and sister agencies - a precedent for future back-office and IT collaboration.

Most significantly, the Recovery Partnership launched a multi-university evaluation collaborative to “tell the story” of ARRA in Chicago and provide an objective view. The hope is that some foundations will be interested in helping the city sustain some projects beyond the two or three years that stimulus funds provide. A dozen researchers are embedded in topic-teams to document the work, identify the innovations and analyze the impact. At a series of national conferences, the Recovery Partnership will help other cities and the federal government understand the impact of large'scale metropolitan investment, which programs work and why, and how to shape public policy to stimulate economic growth.

“As far as we know, there’s no other city in the nation that is working so closely with its philanthropic community to make the economic recovery dollars go farther for the taxpayers,” Daley said.