Economic Vitality

Chicago continues to have one of the world’s largest and most diversified economies, with over four million employees and a regional GDP greater than $500 billion. At the same time, many residents lack access to economic opportunities. Indeed, Chicago has the 18th highest income inequality ratio in the country, and this inequity is highly stratified by race and neighborhood.


Our vision is an economy that works for everyone.


 Specifically, we support:

  • Inclusive regional economic growth;

  • Individual opportunity and prosperity; and

  • Equity across communities.

Key Projects

  • West Side United

  • Cook County Assessor’s Office Transformation

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Since I took office, Civic Consulting Alliance has been instrumental in implementing my vision for reform of the Cook County assessment system, guided by principles of fairness, transparency, and ethics.
— Fritz Kaegi, Assessor, Cook County

2019 Economic Vitality Snapshot

 
 

West Side United

In Chicago’s Loop the average life expectancy is 85 years, while in Garfield Park—just seven L stops west—this life expectancy drops to 69 years, a 16-year “death gap.”

To address this disparity and improve health outcomes for Chicago’s 550,000 West Side residents, six hospitals—AMITA Health, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Cook County Health, Rush University Medical Center, Sinai Health System, and University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System—launched West Side United in 2017.

Today, West Side United is a collaborative of health care institutions, residents, educators, nonprofits, businesses, government agencies, and faith-based institutions that work, live, and congregate on Chicago’s West Side.

This coalition is driven by an audacious goal: to cut the 16-year death gap in half by 2030. West Side United believes that to achieve this vision, we must address the social factors that determine health—that is, the day-to-day experiences and conditions that influence West Side residents’ lives. In response to input that came from a community listening tour, which included nearly 500 community members from West Side neighborhoods, the collaborative invests in high-impact initiatives across four focus areas:

  • Health and Health Care

  • Economic Vitality

  • Neighborhood and Physical Environment

  • Education

Civic Consulting Alliance played a critical role in creating and launching West Side United, and continues to support the collaborative today.

Over the past year, together with pro bono partners Bain & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, CIBC, KPMG, McKinsey & Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Sg2—we helped incubate, launch, and execute 10 priority initiatives across Chicago’s West Side:

Health and Healthcare

  • Developed a Community Health Strategy to organize ongoing collaborative work with Federally Qualified Health Centers, local nonprofits, and other partners. Based on the top priorities, launched two workgroups: one to address hypertension control rates, and another to improve maternal and child health

  • Distributed $125,000 in grants to scale neighborhood-level efforts to Co-Locate Mental Health Services on the West Side

  • Distributed $125,000 in grants to train and increase the number of Community Health Workers on the West Side

Economic Vitality

  • Organized a hiring fair—attended by close to 100 participants and six hospital employers—to increase hospitals’ Local Hiring from West Side neighborhoods

  • Launched pilot cohort of the Medical Assistant Pathways Program to foster hospital Employee Professional Growth, setting 26 participants on the path towards higher-wage employment in clinical positions; began work to incubate three additional pathway programs

  • Developed a roadmap for hospitals’ local spending, and created a playbook to guide similar efforts to support West Side Business Development

  • Piloted a Small Business Accelerator Grant Pool, awarding $85K between seven small businesses from 106 applications; initiated an expanded round two of the program

In the past year, Civic Consulting Alliance guided West Side United in developing strategies and a governance structure that will help us achieve health equity, and provided the support our staff needed to keep us moving towards that goal.
— Darlene Hightower, Vice President, Community Health Equity, Rush University Medical Center

Neighborhood & Physical Environment

  • Supported the Impact Investing committee, engaging community members in decisions to invest $1.7 million through Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to benefit West Side communities

  • Developed a strategy to expand existing and coordinate new programs to improve Healthy Food Access; incubated six initiatives including partnerships with West Side food pantries and a fruit and vegetables voucher program

Education

  • Facilitated a Summer Internship and College Apprenticeship working group with eight organizations, which set goals to increase paid, enriching high school internship placements for West Side students; produced a playbook for employers interested in starting internship programs

We also provided operational support: we led the creation of a goals and metrics framework by which to measure programmatic impact; we provided backbone support as full-time staff were hired; and we advised on West Side United’s operations infrastructure.

Finally, we developed and launched a governance structure to provide West Side United’s strategic direction and ensure that diverse community and stakeholder voices will be embedded at all levels of decision-making. A critical piece of this structure is the Community Advisory Council, an 18-person council of community members from the 10 neighborhoods served by West Side United. Six of these members will join the six founding hospitals on the Leadership Council by the end of 2019, giving community members equal voting power with hospital executives.

 

 

OUTPUTS

Health and Healthcare

  • Community Health Strategy to guide collaboration between Federally Qualified Health Centers, local nonprofits, and other partners

  • $125,000 in grants to Co-Locate Mental Health Services on the West Side

  • $125,000 in grants for Community Health Workers on the West Side

Economic Vitality

  • June hiring fair to increase hospitals’ Local Hiring from West Side neighborhoods

  • 26-person pilot cohort of the Medical Assistant Pathways Program to foster hospital Employee Professional Growth

  • Roadmap for hospitals to increase local spending and boost West Side Business Development

  • $85,000 in grants to seven small businesses via the Small Business Accelerator Grant Pool

Neighborhood & Physical Environment

  • $1.7 million in investments in West Side communities via an Impact Investing committee

  • Strategy with six initiatives to improve Healthy Food Access on the West Side

Education

  • Strategic goals and employer playbook to increase quality Summer Internships and College Apprenticeships for West Side students

Operations

  • Governance structure, including 18-member Community Advisory Council, to ensure that West Side United is driven by community voice

  • Goals and metrics framework to assess West Side United’s progress towards its mission

OUTCOMES

Health and Healthcare

  • 1,700 West Side residents served by Community Health Workers and Co-location of Mental Health Services grants

Economic Vitality

  • Collectively, West Side United Hospitals hired about 1,000 people from Chicago’s West Side, and directed more than $30 million of their spend to West Side local vendors

Neighborhood & Physical Environment

  • Six community-based organizations expanded capacity to deliver affordable housing, youth services, and other programs through impact investments

Education

  • 400 new paid summer internships provided in 2018 across hospital partners

Root® Learning Map® reprinted with permission of Root Inc. ©2018

Root® Learning Map® reprinted with permission of Root Inc. ©2018

 
 

Cook County Assessor’s Office Transformation

The Cook County Assessor’s Office sets the values for 1.8 million residential and commercial properties, playing an important role in ensuring the fairness and accuracy of the County’s property tax system. 

In August 2017, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and then-Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios asked Civic Consulting Alliance to analyze the County’s residential property tax assessment system. Together with pro bono partner Skadden, we found that the County’s assessment system is less fair and far more variable and regressive than industry standards, transferring wealth from owners of lower-value homes to those of higher-value homes. Following the study’s release in February 2018, Civic Consulting Alliance and our pro bono partner Protiviti began working with the County to resolve these issues. Upon his election in November 2018, current Assessor Fritz Kaegi turned to Civic Consulting Alliance to develop a 100-Day Plan to continue reforming the system, guided by three principles: fairness, transparency, and ethics.

The 100-Day plan we helped develop includes 30 initiatives, ranging from improvements in policy and valuation, to employee training and community outreach. When Kaegi took office in December 2018, we helped his team implement the Plan, building an agile project management structure to manage all initiatives.

Additionally, we provided tactical assistance on specific initiatives, including:

  • A sales ratio study of the 2018 assessment of the Chicago Triad (eight Cook County townships including Chicago) which revealed marked increases in uniformity but significant remaining potential for further improvement;

  • Market research to understand the needs of Chicago’s commercial real estate market participants, including feedback on their interactions with the Assessor’s Office and suggestions for improvement; and

  • An audit by the International Association of Assessing Officers to evaluate the Office’s performance relative to industry best practices in order to guide improvements going forward.

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Since I took office, Civic Consulting Alliance has been instrumental in implementing my vision for reform of the Cook County assessment system, guided by principles of fairness, transparency, and ethics.
— Fritz Kaegi, Assessor, Cook County

OUTPUTS

  • Better modeling practices for Cook County’s 2018 assessment

  • Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s 100-Day Plan outlining 30 reform initiatives implemented

  • Market research report on potential improvements to commercial assessment system

OUTCOMES

  • Since 2018, Cook County Assessor’s Office reassessed 420,000 residential properties using the new, more accurate and fair assessment model

 
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