What is interesting, but unsurprising, about Peduto’s 100 policies is that there is something in there for everyone. After sifting through all 100, the entire class came into agreement around one fact: there were too many initiatives! Many of the policies overlapped and some could easily be folded into others for a more focused and less overwhelming campaign. However, to my original point, Peduto’s 100 policies succeeds in creating a dialogue for a change, and that is because there is at least one policy that resonates with every reader.
Peduto’s policy #80, Bank On: Building Stronger Communities through Financial Security, focuses on financial literacy, savings, and economic empowerment, areas that the individuals in my group feel strongly about and have touched upon in their earlier work experiences. We came together eager to work on an approach that would combat the endemic cycle of poverty and attempt to break it.
So, as a group, we surveyed existing financial literacy programs and identified a need for a central managing body, which was the same conclusion Peduto arrived at. As it is, there are some community-based organizations out there, who address this issue for different niche groups, but they leave the needs of families and individuals outside of those groups unaddressed. In policy #29, Financial Empowerment Centers: Helping to Build Self-Sufficiency and Financial Literacy, Peduto spoke of creating “Financial Empowerment Centers in their neighborhoods” to “pull these resources under one roof.” It makes sense to have a consolidated center that can be accessed by all interested parties. This center, reachable in person and by phone, would be available to connect willing users to a financial expert/social worker at a satellite location in their neighborhood. These satellite locations would be accessible at times during and outside of work hours, and they would cater to the most common financial needs of that community. We were overall pleased that our model agreed with Peduto’s, despite slight disappointment among a couple of us about the similarity on the surface level.
As noted in lecture, we realized the importance of paying close attention to existing systems to identify process stopgaps and needs, not only with regards to finding a point of entry for innovation, but to acknowledge what was already working, and why. We are completely uninterested in reinventing the wheel. Ideally, we would be able to drawn upon the strengths of existing financial programs and reuse and recycle a couple of these insights (one definition of innovation). So, at this moment, we are looking at process needs as our ‘source of innovation’ and adaptation and enhancement as our method.
Adapting insights from successful programs is certainly one way Peduto has gone himself. #80, Bank on, was inspired by a program of the National League of Cities, brought to Pittsburgh by the Urban League of Pittsburgh. #28, Save PGH: Creating a Culture of Financial Literacy and Responsibility, was inspired by SaveUSA, a program initiated by NYC officials to promote the habit of saving through a matching system.
Our focus for the semester, then is some combination of #28, #29, and #80. We’re relying on Peduto’s current focus on the area to mean that the timing is right. This has been a recurring theme in Design & Policy for Humanitarian Change, and a central one. Every good idea, every good solution, has to wait for its moment in time. Planners, innovators have to be graced with luck from above that their ideas come at just the right time in order to succeed. The factor of timing is one thing my team kept returning to when deciding what project to pursue, and how to best explore breaking the cycle of poverty.
Good timing means available funding, in addition to attention. United Impact Fund is supplying funding to Bank on Greater Pittsburgh as one in a long list of participating community partners. As part of the program, banks in several neighborhoods have dropped the fees associated with opening basic checking and savings accounts. There is already momentum behind this initiative.
We also have some luck with timing in a complementary area: neighborhood development. Mayor Peduto created two community-based programs, Office of Community Affairs and Bureau of Neighborhood Empowerment, that would strengthen the ethnographic research behind our suggested Bank on program well. They may also provide support for it, by hosting events or spreading the word of mouth.
The Community Affairs team has visited dozens of neighborhoods already, responding to constituent needs. This would be helpful information for us to know. The Bureau of Neighborhood Empowerment focuses on non-profit and faith-based initiatives, mixed-income housing, small business and workforce development, and high-quality education. The non-profit and faith-based and small business initiatives align with the goals of our program, too, and they may already be addressing financial-based issues. A mutually-beneficial, symbiotic relationship seems natural – financial empowerment would also benefit the economic development of these neighborhoods, and our goals seem to align with theirs.
Lastly, and most broadly, another fortuitous facet about the timing is Peduto’s whole culture of change. As reflected in the decision to pursue a partnership with the Brookings Institution, Peduto has committed himself to making Pittsburgh “a model of innovative and equitable development.” We see ourselves as part of that model.
We have a number of conversations in front of us with leaders and volunteers at community centers, faith-based initiatives, and non-profits; Kevin Acklin, Peduto’s Chief of Staff; Esther Bush, CEO of the Urban League; Howard Slaughter Jr, chairman of Bank on; Manager Grant Gittlen and Deputy Manager Lex Janes of The Community Affairs Team; and Dr. Curtiss Porter and Valerie McDonald Roberts, from the Bureau of Neighborhood Empowerment.
Through these conversations, we’d like to test the idea behind our system of a central body, satellite offices in neighborhood centers, and financial meetups in the same centers. These meetups are here to signify investment in the community, to provide a face to a name, to develop relationships and trust with participants, and to build a community of individuals who share the same mutual goal of moving forward financially. The meetups are here to take the scary, impersonal part of going directly to a bank for help away.
We’ll keep you informed of our progress!
– Jennifer, Team 5
Design and Policy 