resources: Our work in action

Activating Innovation Champions

Equipping cities with the leadership skills to apply, teach, and coach innovation methodology throughout their city.

Logo: Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins

About the program

A program executed in partnership with the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation that offers extension coaching to cities in the Innovation Training Program to leverage skills learned over a year and bring them to others in City Hall through a ‘Train the Trainer’ approach.

About Activating Innovation Champions

Activating Innovation Champions is a six-week extension program focused on equipping city staff with the skills in adaptation, facilitation, and coaching to bring the Path to Innovation process to new challenges in City Hall. Through this ‘Train the Trainer’ model, cities receive coach mentorship and a cross-cohort peer community to scope and launch two new innovation projects in the city.

AIC recognizes that senior leadership, middle management, and front-line municipal staff may coalesce around a shared vision for innovation, but that their “task” in building and sustaining this vision is distinct. Oftentimes, front-line staff are responsible for the “bottom-up” design work (speaking with residents, sharing skills with peers, or executing new ideas) while senior leadership is positioned to create the structural conditions for innovation teams and projects to thrive at all levels of City Hall. As such, AIC additionally provides one-to-one coaching for select senior leaders and inspirational Master Classes on ‘Leading Public Innovation’ for a broader swath of leadership.

Impact

7
city governments participated
25
government employees trained in new leadership skills
14
new innovation projects launched
55
city government employees exposed to innovation
95 %
of participants feel better equipped to lead new innovation projects after the program
90 %
of participants feel better equipped to teach and coach after the program
95 %
of participants would recommend the program to a colleague
90 %
of participants believe Activating Innovation Champions is a critical step in innovation training journeys
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