What Happened?
The mayor of Louisville, KY, has created an “Innovation Delivery Team” to tackle five challenges, utilizing data analysis and innovative approaches.
How?
The six-member team is being funded by a $4.8 million grant that was awarded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which allocated $24 million to cities addressing a variety of challenges. Other grants went to the mayors of Atlanta, Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans. The objective of the grants is to establish a model that can be used by other mayors elsewhere to drive innovation.
The Challenges
In Louiseville, five projects were identified after department heads proposed ideas and ostensibly competed to be included; the mayor reportedly was given more than 40 ideas. The challenges to be addressed include:
- Recycling: Make Louisville more “green” by increasing recycling, and diverting solid waste from the city landfill
- EMS: Reducing the number of low-severity medical 911 calls and related EMS runs, which is costly and diverts resources away from medical emergencies.
- Properties: Reduce the number of vacant and abandoned properties; the city has more than 1,000 such properties, and it hopes to acquire and convert or restore them
- Homeless Pets: Increase “live release” rate of healthy adoptable animals; the city’s Animal Services group receives more than 12,000 animals annually.
- Rezoning: Implement a friendlier, faster, and more efficient rezoning process.
Funding
The $4.8 million grant will fund five individuals for three years; each individual will address one or more of the challenges above.
Next Steps
Greater detail on the Louisville grants can be found here.
More information on the Bloomberg program and the $4.8 million grant can be found here; details on the Bloomberg Innovation Delivery Fellowship can be found here.