Empowering Local Governments to Accelerate Economic Mobility

Introduction by Ryan Rippel, Director, Economic Mobility and Opportunity Strategy, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

I feel energized daily by the Foundation’s work to improve the lives of people experiencing poverty, particularly the 45 million in our focus population earning at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.

So much of my passion for this work is grounded in my family’s own struggles with economic mobility when I was a child and my understanding of the complex systemic barriers people face while trying to make it in this country.

Mobility from poverty is declining, and in recent decades, factors like income inequality, regional disparities, and barriers due to racism and sexism have limited economic opportunities for many. These barriers show up most predominantly in our local communities.

Research shows that the systems and conditions within a half-mile radius of a child’s home—access to quality education, affordable housing, healthcare, and job opportunities—play a critical role in shaping their economic future. Local governments oversee many of these systems, delivering essential services and benefits to individuals and families facing poverty.

However, despite significant efforts, local governments often face challenges, including limited resources, competing priorities, and insufficient access to actionable data and evidence-based solutions which impede their ability to improve economic outcomes in their communities.

Helping local leaders overcome these challenges is part of our work through our Economic Mobility and Opportunity Strategy. That work includes collaborating with government and community leaders and sharing evidence-based tools and best practices proven to improve economic mobility.

Our partner, Results for America (RFA), is facilitating these efforts by bringing together ten national organizations that support thousands of elected and appointed local leaders nationwide. They meet to trade ideas, learn from each other, and identify needs for data, insights, tools, and resources that philanthropic partners can help provide. I’m excited about what we’re learning from this community of practice (CoP).

In this guest blog below, Christian Motley, Vice President of Partnerships and Community Impact at RFA, shares the impact this CoP is already having, helping local leaders ensure that everyone – regardless of who they are, where they live, or their socio-economic status – can thrive with dignity, power, and autonomy in communities where they are valued.

-Ryan Rippel, Director, Economic Mobility and Opportunity Strategy

Empowering Local Governments to Accelerate Economic Mobility

By Christian Motley, Vice President, Partnerships and Community Impact, Results for America

Declining economic mobility is among the greatest challenges of our time. Research has shown that the neighborhood where a child grows up has an enormous influence in shaping their economic opportunities later in life. That means that solutions aimed at helping the more than 45 million people experiencing poverty in America must be locally driven as well.

City and county government leaders across the country are eager to advance programs and policies to expand economic opportunity for their residents, but they face their own challenges, including insufficient resources, understaffing, competing priorities, and uncertainty about whether a new idea will work.

Earlier this year, with support from the Gates Foundation, Results for America joined with nine other partner organizations to launch a first-of-its-kind initiative to ensure local government leaders have the tools, resources, and support they need to deliver better results for residents. This new partnership brings together some of the nation’s leading organizations representing local leaders with the creators of evidence-based tools, resources, and research that can help cities and counties address issues like housing, education, public health, financial security, and more.

These are tools like Results for America’s Economic Mobility Catalog, which features hundreds of solutions with a track record of success; the Urban Institute’s Upward Mobility Framework, which helps local governments identify and assess the specific policy challenges hampering upward mobility; and Opportunity Insights’ Opportunity Atlas, which provides Census tract-level data to help local governments understand the geography of opportunity in their communities.

To help build awareness of these tools among local decision-makers, the partnership includes national associations with trusted relationships with elected and appointed leaders, as well as other civic and philanthropic leaders. These organizations — the National League of Cities (NLC), the National Association of Counties (NACo), the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the African American Mayors Association (AAMA), the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) and CFLeads — collectively have the power to reach tens of thousands of government leaders whose decisions impact the lives of millions of residents nationwide.

By testing new strategies to promote these resources — along with coaching and other assistance to help interested cities and counties adopt solutions — the partnership hopes to gain a better understanding of what moves local governments on a path from awareness of evidence-based solutions to implementation of strategies to advance equitable economic mobility outcomes.

We know that when local government leaders become aware of economic mobility tools and resources, they are likely to use them. A recent survey of more than 850 local government leaders by Abt Global found that about 75 percent of local leaders who became aware of these economic mobility resources used them at least once. Local leaders reported using these tools to better inform themselves and the public, craft legislation, draft policy memos, adjust funding levels, and connect with other jurisdictions or experts to learn more about promising programs or policies.

Hannah Garty, an Innovation Project Manager for the City of Syracuse, turned to the Economic Mobility Catalog when the city was looking for ways to reduce the burden of fines and fees on low-income residents.

Her team read the Catalog’s case study on how San Francisco eliminated more than $32 million in debt from local fees and used it to address a persistent problem faced by residents - paying parking tickets. After attending a Solution Sprint that provided coaching and technical assistance, the city changed to a sliding-scale payment plan that promoted a more equitable structure for residents. “I use [the Catalog] every time I need to figure out where to start on a new program,” Garty said. “It’s a one-stop shop for pitching new ideas… which cities are doing it, the evidence of why it works, and the practical advice to make it happen.”

The Abt Global survey showed that city and county leaders are looking for localized data and actionable insights to help them implement new programs and policies: 40% wanted implementation toolkits, 39% wanted data on their community’s conditions, 38% wanted funding guides, while 32% wanted community outreach and messaging guides, as well as strategies for partnering with stakeholders.

These insights from local government leaders, which are an essential part of the feedback loop of our partnership, can help improve the quality and accessibility of economic mobility tools and resources. The Economic Mobility Catalog, for example, has been adding new features to improve accessibility and includes new implementation resources from recent 6-12 week virtual Solutions Sprints to help jurisdictions adopt evidence-based solutions.

Over the last 11 months, the partners in this project have held nearly 46 events and webinars to help local leaders make better use of these economic mobility tools and resources. They have tested more than 180 dissemination tactics, including email blasts, newsletters, social media, digital ads, videos, website features, blogs, earned media, influencer strategies, and personalized outreach to policymakers.

Our partners have launched innovative programs – including NACo’s Rural Leaders for Economic Mobility (RLEM) program, AAMA’s Economic Mobility Leadership Initiative (EMLI), NLC’s Advancing Economic Mobility Rapid Grants program, ICMA's Economic Mobility Peer Learning Cohort and Grants Program, and CFLeads’ Economic Mobility Action Network – to help local government leaders identify and invest in solutions that will work best in their communities. They have also collaborated to promote new resources, including the Urban Institute’s Upward Mobility Data Dashboard and Opportunity Insights’ new research and updated Opportunity Atlas.

For each strategy, they are gathering data on what works and what can be improved. At monthly virtual meetings and quarterly in-person convenings, the partners are sharing this data and planning joint activities to help more cities and counties implement effective solutions. Our engagement is rigorous, action-oriented, and peer-supported, committed to holding the standard named by a partner who called our collaboration “radically and wonderfully different from everything we’ve done before.”

By helping local government leaders identify barriers to opportunity and invest in more effective solutions, we can help them make faster progress on their most urgent challenges and rebuild the public’s trust in the ability of governments to improve residents’ lives.

About Results for America:

Results for America is helping decision-makers at all levels of government harness the power of evidence and data to solve the world’s greatest challenges. Our mission is to make investing in what works the “new normal,” so that when policymakers make decisions, they start by seeking the best evidence and data available, then use what they find to get better results. Learn more at results4america.org.

About Abt Global:

For 60 years, Abt Global has tackled society’s toughest problems, creating evidence and innovation that improves policy, systems, and lives. A mission-driven consulting and research firm, Abt partners with clients and communities in 50+ countries to advance solutions in health, technology, environment and social policy. We work to equip people with the tools, resources, and expertise they need to realize fair futures, build resilient systems, and create sustainable economic opportunities for healthy, secure lives.