Civic Consulting Alliance is playing a key role in the Cut the Tape initiative to help the City accelerate its approval processes for real estate development projects. We leveraged our expertise to help the Mayor’s Office research best practices from peer cities, gather and synthesize input from stakeholders, and work with 14 City departments to refine the list of high-impact solutions. This collaboration resulted in the Cut the Tape report of 100+ solutions to significantly speed up the development approval process and position Chicago to better support investments by small businesses, entrepreneurs, developers, and corporations. Civic Consulting Alliance is continuing to support the City in the implementation of this ambitious set of recommendations.

Civic Consulting Alliance supported Chicago Public Schools with the design, preparation, and execution of eight community round tables that would lead to impactful recommendations for the Black Student Success Plan. These recommendations could be considered for incorporation into the district's upcoming five-year strategic plan.

Civic Consulting Alliance’s pro bono partners Kearney and Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila provided specialized expertise in legal analysis, labor modeling, and implementation planning that’s helping the City double the geographic reach of its promising mental health crisis response program.

CTA, Metra, and Pace are heading toward a fiscal cliff as emergency federal assistance is expiring and ridership remains below pre-pandemic levels. Without action, a $730 million (20%) budget shortfall is projected for 2026. This will lead to service cuts of 30 to 40 percent and a vicious cycle of lower ridership and fare revenue, which, in turn, would require further budget cuts.

An influx of capital and recovery funding provides an opportunity for municipalities to make infrastructure investments that will improve residents’ quality of life, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and mitigate the effects of climate change.

Civic Consulting Alliance recently completed several collaborative projects with local and state governments to meet the urgent needs of asylum seekers, and prepare long-term, sustainable strategies for future influxes of new arrivals to Chicago. Clients featured below include Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS), Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), and the Johnson transition team.

Since Mayor Harold Washington asked the business community for pro bono help analyzing the City budget, we have proudly served the Mayor’s Office to advance its most important and timely initiatives. Beginning with supporting the mayoral transition in 2019, we have worked closely with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Office to advance initiatives aligned with our mission and to support projects where Civic Consulting Alliance was uniquely positioned to make an impact.

Gun violence continues to be a public health crisis throughout America, and a top priority for many Chicagoans who are pressing local governments to do more to increase public safety. To meet this challenge, Civic Consulting Alliance is supporting multiple interconnected clients to ensure quick and effective scaling of these concerted violence reduction efforts.

Civic Consulting Alliance was called on by the Chicago Mayor’s Office to support the Mayor’s Women Advisory Council to analyze the impact of the ‘she-cession,’ a gender gap in employment rates and pay in Chicago that was worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The final report, “Creating a More Equitable Recovery: Addressing the Economic Barriers COVID-19 Exacerbated for Women in Chicago,” provides decision-makers with recommendations to center women’s economic recovery in their planning and policies.

Civic Consulting Alliance staff are experienced in coordinating large groups of stakeholders with diverse ideas and priorities to “get big things done.” We partnered with the Mayor’s Office to support and facilitate the Museum Campus Working Group. The final report, “Where Worlds Connect,” provides recommendations to transform Museum Campus into a more accessible, relevant, and attractive public space that is activated year-round.

In July 2021, Chicago’s City Council passed the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance. This landmark ordinance creates two bodies: a new city agency called the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA), with power to advance systemic reform, and District Councils, which will be elected in each police district and work to improve policing and public safety in the district. The Commission and District Councils will give community members powerful new tools to provide oversight of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), COPA (Civilian Office of Police Accountability), and the Police Board, while promoting meaningful community engagement to build and implement public safety solutions.

Since 2019, CPD has made progress on specific consent decree mandates. However, there has not yet been intentional focus on the complementary cultural change that is needed to realize the spirit of reform. Building on our prior work to support CPD and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) in preparing for and responding to the consent decree, in 2021 and 2022, Civic Consulting Alliance undertook a series of projects to achieve this culture change and to accelerate the Department’s reform efforts.