Anchor Dashboard Focuses the Conversation on Meaningful Impact

Our anchor dashboard project continues to catalyze conversations about how anchor institutions can consciously assess the impacts they have on neighboring low-income communities. Our executive director Ted Howard outlined the project for Baltimore's WYPR (listen to the conversation here), spoke to Next City about how comprehensive metrics help produce anchor-led economic development that doesn't result in the unintended effects of gentrification and displacement, and blogged about the Dashboard for the San Francisco Federal Reserve's "What Works for America's Communities" project. The Dashboard has also been presented to audiences across the country, including at ICIC's Inner City Economic Summit and at a four-city teleconference in the "Redefining Rustbelt" series, organized by the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond, Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia (video from both events is forthcoming). 

But what was supposed to have been the launch event for the Anchor Dashboard —a presentation at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—was a casualty of the recent government shutdown. We are delighted to announce that this event has been rescheduled, and we hope you'll join us, in person in DC or via livestream, on Monday, November 18th at 1PM (10AM PST).  In addition to The Anchor Dashboard authors' Sarah McKinley and Ted Howard, the HUD event will feature comments by Sherone Ivey, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of University Partnerships, and Charles Rutheiser, Senior Associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Register now if you plan to attend.

In the lead up to that conversation, we'd like to offer another way to think about how the Anchor Dashboard might be adopted by an institution. Our hope is that this project will not just stimulate conversations, but encourage universities and hospitals to ask critical questions about their impact potential and to consider adopting a set of comprehensive metrics that track their committment to community—especially low- and moderate-income residents.  To help imagine what this could look like, we asked our resident graphic designer Benzamin Yi to sketch out a hypothetical webpage that displays how the "University of Community Wealth" is monitoring the way its activities are benefitting its neighbors and community:

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Here at the Democracy Collaborative, we welcome a dialogue on how this Dashboard implementation might look for an instution. If you have graphic/web design skills, enjoy designing charts, and/or have ideas on how GIS may enhance the above, we'd love to see your take!  Please send to jduda-at-democracy-collaborative.org and we'll post it here.