City of Chicago - Vision for Equitable Recovery
One of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s policy priorities is to eradicate poverty and address systemic inequities. This priority only grew in importance due to the COVID-19 crisis, as thousands of residents faced unemployment, loss of income, and other hardships. While the City worked to address the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, it sought to ensure an inclusive and equitable economic recovery—pursuing strategies that would lead to enduring change. Throughout 2020 and 2021, Civic Consulting Alliance supported a series of critical projects with the City to achieve this vision for economic equity and vitality.
Recovery Task Force Project Management
Office Structure
Soon after the pandemic hit Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot launched the COVID-19 Recovery Task Force—a group of industry experts, regional government leaders, community-based partners, and policymakers—to provide recommendations for the recovery of the Chicago region. Civic Consulting Alliance and our pro bono partner McKinsey served a key role in managing the work of the Recovery Task Force in the spring of 2020.
In July 2020, the Recovery Task Force released its advisory report, ‘Forward Together,’ outlining 17 recommendations to ensure an inclusive and equitable recovery. The recommendations covered a wide range of issues—from mental health to business attraction.
In fall 2020, a joint Civic Consulting Alliance and EY pro bono team collaborated with the Mayor’s Office to design and implement a system to manage the execution of those recommendations across City departments and sister agencies. Over eight weeks, the team stood up and piloted a Project Management Office structure to help ensure progress, accountability and transparency. The team also identified specific initiatives to achieve each recommendation and tools to drive these initiatives forward.
“Civic Consulting Alliance’s support helped the Mayor’s Office take timely action on the initiatives outlined in Forward Together. They ensured that we have structures in place to keep multiple City departments and agencies focused on implementing a unified vision for an equitable recovery.”
Recovery Workforce Initiatives
With the Project Management Office structure fully operational, Civic Consulting Alliance shifted to accelerate the implementation of select Recovery Task Force recommendations. From January through March 2021, a joint Civic Consulting Alliance and Deloitte pro bono team supported an effort to identify recovery workforce initiatives that would increase access to in-demand jobs for those who have been displaced by the COVID-19 crisis, youth entering the workforce, and communities of color. We:
Facilitated working sessions with workforce stakeholders to identify employment opportunities in five growth sectors: healthcare, transportation, distribution, and logistics, manufacturing, food service, and information technology;
Engaged subject matter experts to identify breakages that inhibit disadvantaged communities from accessing those opportunities; and
Developed a solutions roadmap to coordinate execution between the Mayor's Office, the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, and other partner organizations through 2022.
Equipped with this robust, collaboratively-built roadmap, the City and Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership are advancing ten priority workforce initiatives and, in August, hosted ‘HIRE Chicago,’ a month-long citywide hiring event attracting over 200 employers and engaging several thousand job seekers.
INVEST South/West
While pursuing these forward-looking economic recovery initiatives, the City also continued to support ambitious strategies to alleviate poverty and inequity that it had launched prior to the COVID-19 crisis—in particular, INVEST South/West, a groundbreaking initiative to counter historical disinvestment on the South and West Sides that targets significant public, private sector, and philanthropic investments in key commercial corridors in 10 neighborhoods.
“At a time when the City’s resources are stretched thin, Civic Consulting Alliance has kept us driving towards the transformative goals that are necessary not just for our recovery, but to make Chicago an equitable city where all residents prosper. There is no other organization that has Civic Consulting Alliance’s depth of experience collaborating with the City, nor the breadth of visibility across major initiatives and sectors that we rely upon.”
In early 2020, Civic Consulting Alliance joined our longtime partner BCG to support Deputy Mayor Mayekar to: define a first-of-its-kind, inter-department operating model for the execution of INVEST South/West that incorporates robust community input in decision-making; map City funding sources for 50+ INVEST South/West projects; and develop a prototype marketing tool to attract private sector investment to target neighborhoods.
To sustain and accelerate the implementation of INVEST South/West’s operating model—through the demands of the COVID-19 crisis—Civic Consulting Alliance provided an ‘executive on loan’ to temporarily staff the role of Business Development Manager within the INVEST South/West office. From spring 2020 through March 2021, we supported various initiatives, including the examples shared here:
Worked with the Department of Planning and Development and more than 50 private sector and nonprofit organizations to explore moving or investing in facilities on the South and West Sides, which led a major hospital to make plans to build a clinic in Bronzeville.
Secured support from a pro bono partner to assess real estate investment trends.
Helped secure $11 million in grants from the CARES Act to address health care deserts in Auburn Gresham and North Lawndale.
Developed a pilot effort to clean and beautify vacant lots on INVEST South/West corridors with the support of a pro bono fellow from Bain.
Supported the creation of requests for proposals (RFPs) for development of sites in Austin, Auburn Gresham, and Englewood, and created agendas and facilitation materials for community feedback sessions to gather input on the RFPs, which we then helped synthesize for bid evaluation materials.
Worked with the Center for Community Progress to develop a report on policy options for reducing vacant commercial buildings.
Collaborated with the Mayor’s Office to set up a team at World Business Chicago to carry forward INVEST South/West’s business development work.
Outputs
INVEST South/West
Tools and processes—for the Mayor’s Office and World Business Chicago to drive forward community-desired business development in 12 INVEST South/West corridors
RFPs—from the City for development of sites in the initial three INVEST South/West neighborhoods (Austin, Auburn Gresham, and Englewood)
Recovery Task Force
Project management structure—and process to oversee the City’s implementation of the 17 Recovery Task Force (RTF) recommendations, and ensure accountability and transparency
Staff capacity—to manage the RTF and help implement its recommendations
Roadmap—outlining recovery workforce initiatives to be executed through 2022
Outcomes
INVEST South/West
Chicago selected three winning proposals for developments in Austin, Englewood, and Auburn Gresham, which will give residents access to new cultural, affordable housing, and employment resources—including an anticipated 330 short term construction jobs and 70 permanent, full-time jobs
Recovery Task Force
City of Chicago has taken concrete steps to achieve the ambitious recommendations of the Recovery Task Force—which arguably contributed to Chicago having the lowest unemployment rate of the nation’s top four major cities
Ten workforce development initiatives are underway to increase access to in-demand jobs for those who have been displaced by the COVID-19 crisis, youth entering the workforce, and communities of color
