Initiatives

The Children & Nature Network (C&NN) was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working nationally and internationally to reconnect children with nature. The network provides a critical link between researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to children's health and well-being. C&NN also promotes fundamental institutional change and provides resources for sharing information, strategic initiatives and success stories. Civic Results designed the process and wrote the C&NN Community Action Guide to assist communities of all sizes to engage people and create a movement to reconnect children and nature.

The Metro Mayors Caucus and Metro Denver Homeless Initiative FLEX Fund provided flexible, one-time assistance to help people experiencing homelessness secure permanent housing and, in some cases, remain in housing. With more than $250,000 in contributions since 2018 from the Metro Mayors Caucus, The Denver Foundation, and the private sector, the Flex Fund provided critical assistance to homeless and housing-insecure individuals and families across the seven-county metro area.

The Flex Fund was created in June 2018 at the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative with funding from the Metro Mayors Caucus. In 2019, The Denver Foundation challenged metro area mayors to recommit to the fund by matching or exceeding a new grant totaling $50,000. In response, more than 30 mayors pledged nearly $70,000 and the Fund has attracted an additional $10,000 in private sector contributions.

The Flex Fund covered move-in costs like security or utility deposits and pro-rated rent as well as landlord mitigation. Nonprofit providers of housing and services for those experiencing homelessness can apply to the fund to assist residents across the region. Ultimately, the fund helped households in several metro Denver cities.

“Having a safe place to call home is foundational – it is essential to the success of our families, schools, communities, and our regional economy. But in our high-cost housing market, many of our coworkers, neighbors, and family members are at risk of homelessness,” said Wheat Ridge Mayor Bud Starker, who chaired the Metro Mayors Caucus committee on Housing, Hunger and Homelessness. “That’s why we created the Flex Fund at the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. We’re grateful that these additional funds are available to address critical needs for more people.”

The Healthy People Healthy Places Convergence Project—led by Kaiser Permanente, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Kellogg Foundation—identified five key areas with the greatest opportunities for collaborative action among healthy living funders, organizations and practitioners. One of these opportunities was establishment of a “Learning and Advocacy Network.” Civic Results was engaged by the HPHP Convergence Partners to identify what practitioners and funders in the healthy living fields understand to be the benefits of collaboration and what they believe to be the tools, techniques and programs that could make collaboration happen. From this information, a package of tools and programs were developed, vetted with prospective users (funders, organizations and practitioners) and then refined for implementation.

The patterns of development in our communities are more than ever linked to the health of our economies, the health of our environment, and the health of our population.

The Livable Communities Support Center (LCSC) worked to provide information, strategies, and direct support to individuals, organizations, and communities wanting to help make their neighborhoods, cities and regions more sustainable, more active, and more prosperous.

Civic Results designed the outreach and public education effort associated with Denver's Living Streets Initiative. The Living Streets Initiative is an interdisciplinary, multi-sector partnership intended to stimulate a regional dialogue about the benefits and tradeoffs of living streets, and recommend how to infuse a living streets approach into everyday decision making by City agencies based on their respective roles and responsibilities as well as City practice and policies. Living Streets are vibrant places where people of all ages and physical abilities feel safe and comfortable using any mode of travel (walking, biking, transit, or private auto). While Living Streets are designed to maximize the efficiency of a corridor's person-trip capacity (compared to solely auto-trip capacity), they are also intended to integrate with the use and form of adjacent development to achieve great destinations for people.

The Metro Denver Health and Wellness Commission worked to make Metro Denver America's Healthiest Community with a focus on promoting programs and policies that improve physical, environmental, and mental health across all sectors of our community.

The MDHWC partnered to implement a strategic plan focused on metropolitan Denver that emphasized home, school, employer, and community-based strategies to stem or reverse growth in Colorado's obesity rate. The MDHWC also performed research and compiled measurements to benchmark the region's progress.

Established with initial support from the Center for Human Nutrition at UCDHSC, Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, the Metro Mayors Caucus, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, America on the Move, and other key stakeholders, the MDHWC was managed by Civic Results for three years before it was supplanted by LiveWell Colorado.

Civic Results designed and facilitated two large summit meetings in the three county Northern Kentucky region adjacent to Cincinnatti, Ohio, as part of a year long regional visioning effort. Civic Results and PlaceMatters provided the technology for hundreds of participants using keypad polling and networked computers to create and prioritize a variety of strategies to implement their regional vision.

Civic Results joined with Fregonese and Associates, and Robert Grow to support the Big Look Task Force in its review of the Oregon Land Use Law. This project, initiated by Governor Kulongoski, was intended to determine whether, after 30 years, the Oregon Land Use Law had fulfilled its intended purposes and whether its current form was appropriate for current and future needs of the State. The Task Force worked for 3 years and did not recommend a complete overhaul of the law but rather several adjustments to accommodate current circumstances. The Task Force's recommendations led to passage of Oregon House Bill 2229 in the 2009 legislative session.

In 2007 and again in 2012, Civic Results designed and conducted community based strategic planning efforts in Fort Collins, Colorado to improve the connections between the City of Fort Collins and Colorado State University. Over 120 residents of the City participated in a 9 month process during the first phase and a 5 month process during the second phase, resulting in a number of successful initiatives in multiple categories. Implementation of these bold ideas is ongoing in Fort Collins and the UniverCityConnections stakeholders continue to meet.