A3C is turning 11 this year.
11 is young in human years, but VERY OLD in festival years. (1 Human Years = 6.5 Festival Years... roughly)
As we have grown (older and bigger), we have tried to build relationships with amazing organizations to help give back (and make a positive inpact) to the community that has afforded us the opportunity to do what we love. So it is with GREAT pleasure that we annoucne a move into the Center for Civil Innovation. Starting March 1, 2015 we will be working in (and with) CCI. History in the making!!!
Check out the site and LEARN MORE below: http://www.civicatlanta.org/
MISSION: TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS AND INCREASE CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
The Center for Civic Innovation builds and supports networks of people around key community challenges, such as food security and STE(A)M education. Additionally, through a process called Civic Labs, we connect social entrepreneurs to constrained public agencies and nonprofits through pay for performance contracts, reducing risk for the public agency and giving the entrepreneur what they want and need most: a customer. In addition, we provide capacity building services to local governments, nonprofits, and businesses to help them better engage and connect with their local communities.
CIVIC NETWORKS
We build networks of people in the local community that are focused on solving a key social challenge. By profession, these people are teachers, doctors, farmers, etc. They don’t call themselves entrepreneurs, but they are. We give these networks resources, mentors, and unique access to capital. We provide space in our 4,000 sq ft. Center for collaboration, learning, and idea-sharing. Beyond that, we offer curated monthly workshops based on topics curated specifically for our network members. Our pilot Civic Network is around the topic of food access and is made up of over 65 local food entrepreneurs in Atlanta. Our next Civic Network around sustainability will launch this Spring.
CIVIC LABS
Our Civic Labs program builds a bridge between social entrepreneurs and public organizations, which includes both city agencies and nonprofits, through pay for performance contracts. The process looks like this: we identify a key local challenge with a public organization. We then find social entrepreneurs working on innovative products or services addressing that challenge head on in the local community. Through a competitive process, we bring on the top ideas and lead a cohort of entrepreneurs through an acceleration process. At the end of the process, we set up pay for performance contracts between public organizations and the entrepreneurs based on agreed upon metrics and expected outcomes.
We are currently running a Civic Lab around increasing the supply and/or demand of healthy, affordable, fresh, and safe foods in Atlanta neighborhoods with a cohort of twelve companies. We are designing this lab with support from the Atlanta Community Food Bank, Arby’s Foundation, and Georgia Tech’s Center for Urban Innovation.
CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAMS
We recognize that local governments, nonprofits, and corporations do not always have a precedence or good track record of working with local communities or thinking outside of the box. We offer consultative services for these organizations focused on design thinking, data science, and creating opportunities for civic engagement and participation.
