Do Something

Rate Ideas

With the Jeremy Nowak Urban Innovation Award, The Citizen, in partnership with Spring Point Partners, will give out $50,000 to bring one urban solution from our Ideas We Should Steal Festival to Philadelphia.

Check out the ideas presented at the festival, rank each idea, and stay tuned for an announcement about the top three scorers, along with a Request for Proposal to bring one here.

Help Us Steal An Idea

Connect WITH OUR SOCIAL ACTION TEAM



Help Us Steal an Idea!

We’re giving away $50,000 through the second annual Jeremy Nowak Urban Innovation Award—and we want you to help us decide who gets it

Help Us Steal an Idea!

We’re giving away $50,000 through the second annual Jeremy Nowak Urban Innovation Award—and we want you to help us decide who gets it

What’s next?

This is the question we heard most often as people left last week’s Ideas We Should Steal Festival, the Citizen’s second annual day of presenting solutions to problems that afflict Philadelphia and cities around the country.

What’s next? I’m glad you asked. Thanks to the generous support of Spring Point Partners, for the second year in a row, The Citizen is awarding a $50,000 Jeremy Nowak Urban Innovation Award—named for our brilliant late chairman—to a local organization to launch a solution in Philly inspired by an idea we heard at the Festival. And we want you to help us decide which idea that should be.

Go here to rate the ideas.

Here’s how it works: At the bottom of this post are videos of several ideas presented at the Festival. After you watch them, you can rate each from one to five lightning bolts. We’ll close the voting in a couple of weeks and issue a Request for Proposal based on the top-rated solutions from readers like you. Sometime in February we’ll announce the winner of this year’s grant. (Last year’s award went to the Women’s Community Revitalization Project.)

Like our attendees at the Ideas We Should Festival, we here at The Citizen are impatient with just listening and talking—though, sure, both of those have value. We want positive change, and we want it now. We want to see problems being solved by people in our community who have the drive, the wherewithal, and the ideas to solve them. We want to be part of the solution, not just a megaphone for Philly’s multitude of problems. And we know that you do, too.

Check out the ideas here. And don’t forget to rate them!

Give Citizens a Say in How to Spend Money

Shari Davis, Co-Executive Director, Participatory Budgeting Project

Lead an Effort to Impose Term Limits on City Council

Zack Maxwell, Publisher, Arlington Voice

Help Grow Businesses in Underserved Communities

La Shon Walker, Director, Community Affairs, FivePoint Holdings; Andrea Zopp, CEO of World Business Chicago; and Drexel’s Metro Finance Lab Director Bruce Katz

Reduce Gun Violence Through a Community-Wide Effort

David Muhammad, Executive Director, National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform

Empower Public Servants to be Problem-Solvers

Brian Elms, Innovation Practice Lead, Change & Innovation Agency

Use Evidence-Based Approach for Poverty Reduction

Carson Hicks, Deputy Executive Director, NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity; Bill Golderer, President/CEO, United Way of Greater Philadelphia & Southern New Jersey

Use Basketball to Keep People Out of Prison

Taylor Paul, Co-Founder, RVA League for Safer Streets

Also, we couldn’t have put on the Ideas We Should Steal Festival without the help of our generous sponsors, including Brandywine Realty Trust, our Break Sponsor. Check out some of the great work Brandywine is doing here:

Header photo: David Muhammad | Courtesy JPG Photography

Advertising Terms

We do not accept political ads, issue advocacy ads, ads containing expletives, ads featuring photos of children without documented right of use, ads paid for by PACs, and other content deemed to be partisan or misaligned with our mission. The Philadelphia Citizen is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization and all affiliate content will be nonpartisan in nature. Advertisements are approved fully at The Citizen's discretion. Advertisements and sponsorships have different tax-deductible eligibility. For questions or clarification on these conditions, please contact Director of Sales & Philanthropy Kristin Long at [email protected] or call (609)-602-0145.

Photo and video disclaimer for attending Citizen events

By entering an event or program of The Philadelphia Citizen, you are entering an area where photography, audio and video recording may occur. Your entry and presence on the event premises constitutes your consent to be photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded and to the release, publication, exhibition, or reproduction of any and all recorded media of your appearance, voice, and name for any purpose whatsoever in perpetuity in connection with The Philadelphia Citizen and its initiatives, including, by way of example only, use on websites, in social media, news and advertising. By entering the event premises, you waive and release any claims you may have related to the use of recorded media of you at the event, including, without limitation, any right to inspect or approve the photo, video or audio recording of you, any claims for invasion of privacy, violation of the right of publicity, defamation, and copyright infringement or for any fees for use of such record media. You understand that all photography, filming and/or recording will be done in reliance on this consent. If you do not agree to the foregoing, please do not enter the event premises.