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Chuck is joined by James Anderson, head of the Government Innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies. Under his leadership, the program has helped thousands of cities worldwide embrace an innovative, people-based approach to local governance.

Today, Chuck and James discuss why local governments matter now more than ever. Then they explore ways that residents, advocates, and organizations can encourage city leaders to embrace innovation.

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  Chuck Marohn 0:00

  Hey everybody. This is Chuck Marohn. Welcome back to the Strong Towns Podcast. Today I'm going to chat with someone a little different than we usually have. Not an author, not a rabble rouser -- maybe a little bit of a rabble rouser. We'll find out. I've got an opportunity today to chat with James Anderson. He is the head of the Government Innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies. Jim's worked now for more than a decade with 1000s of mayors and municipal advisors, bolstering their problem solving capacity across the world, and as a trusted advisor to them. Jim, this is the first time you and I have met and had an opportunity to chat. I'm really excited about this. I'm of course, familiar with Bloomberg Philanthropies and the work that you all are doing, and I'm excited for our audience to get to know you as well. Welcome to the Strong Towns Podcast.

  James Anderson 1:02

  It is great to be with you today.

  Chuck Marohn 1:04

  Can you talk a little bit about Bloomberg Philanthropies? Give me the overall mission and the vibe, and then let's talk a little bit also about the work that you're doing specifically, if you don't mind.

  James Anderson 1:16

  It's very nice to be with you. And it's great to speak with the Strong Towns community. So we started this work nearly 15 years ago. We are the only major foundation in the world that is funded and overseen by somebody who sat in the seat of a mayor. So Mike, I think, has a very unique perspective on the opportunity of towns and cities and also the incredible challenges that local governments face to do big things. And he asked us to set up a set of programs that focused on beefing up the problem solving capacities of city halls, originally around the country but now around the world. Cities matter so much. You know this as well as anybody. For innovation, for growth, for opportunity for young people and old people. More and more of the world's population is living in cities. So the decisions made by local governments matter more than ever. At the same time, local governments are hugely undercapacitated. They are stretched thin from a staff perspective. They're still struggling with silos and analog tools in our digital world, and so there's a huge need to upskill and reinforce the ability of these cities to set ambitious goals, to do innovative things, and to deliver results that really matter in people's lives. So over the past 12, 13 years, we've built a series of programs that are focused on building up the capacity of local governments. We focus on leadership. How do we make sure that mayors, Chiefs of Staff, budget directors, HR directors, procurement leads, everybody who has their hands on the lever of power understands what a 21st Century job description looks like, what it means to be ambitious and to lead in those seats? We make sure that they have access to world-class leadership development training, we focus a lot on the innovation and data capabilities of local governments. And we do a tremendous amount to beef up data teams, innovation teams, so that city halls can count things, can detect trends earlier, can set ambitious targets and measure their way to results and unlock creativity within city halls. Finally, we do a lot around ideas. We have big global ideas competitions where we invite city halls to partner with community actors to focus on a big challenge in that community and show us what they've got. Each time we run the competition, we award millions of dollars to help those cities test those ideas, and then we help spread the best of them. So this programming, I think last year, reached somewhere close to 900 municipalities globally. 700 of those are in the United States. And so that's sort of the thrust of what we're doing.

  Chuck Marohn 4:26

  Talk a little bit about how you got involved with this. Who are you, James Anderson? How did you get involved with Bloomberg Philanthropies, with this work? I think you've got an interesting story. I'd like people to hear it.

  James Anderson 4:42

  Well, first of all, I'm a Montanan. I come from Missoula, Montana, that's where my roots are. And came out to New York in late 1990s to work on LGBT student issues. I started working for a very small organization that was focused on protecting gay and lesbian students from discrimination and bullying in schools. It was really cutting edge work back in the day, and I was one of those people who really looked at local governments as the problem. You know, when kids were getting harassed and when discrimination was running rampant, there were very rarely mayors and local legislators standing up for these young people. And so I really had a cynical view about local government, and did not think local government was a place that that took care of vulnerable people. So when I got a call from a recruiter in 2002 right after Mike had been elected as mayor, and they started talking to me about joining the team at homeless services, I honestly was like, "You have the wrong guy." But they convinced me that they were trying to create a different kind of team within city hall, a team of people who were advocates and who were interested in shifting these systems from the inside. And I, of course, was really intrigued at the opportunity to work on homelessness in New York City. It was an epic, massive issue, and a huge challenge. I took a leap of faith and came in, and what I watched over that next four years was an incredible commissioner under the guidance and direction of Mike Bloomberg, to fix what was really screwed up about the way we were approaching homelessness in this city, to change the incentives of the system, to shift the way that the poorest people in the city interacted with the with city government, and to change it from a shameful, punitive experience to something that was respectful. And I saw local government with new eyes. Mike then asked me to come into City Hall, and I served as his communications director for the next four years. That, again, was incredible. This was 2006, the moment when cities were coming out as global actors on issues like climate change and asserting a different kind of authority and results on topics that national governments were failing to get traction on. And I was completely compelled by that. And then Mike asked me to come up here to the foundation in 2010 and kick off this work. So it's a long path from Missoula, Montana, to becoming a believer, and then a real supporter of the role of local governments in solving the most important problems we face, and really understanding that not every city hall is built like Mike's, like New York City, and there's really an important role for philanthropy to help raise the ambition of city halls and then give them the tools and the resources that they're not otherwise getting, so that they can our bigger solutions.

  Chuck Marohn 7:54

  I feel like I'm going to have 1000 diversions today. I'm going to try to use our time wisely, but I've got to ask you this. One of the tensions that I see a lot in our work and in work with people who work with cities is that there's a New York experience that rhymes with a San Francisco experience, or a Chicago experience, or an LA or Houston experience. And then there's a Missoula experience. You know, I live in a small town in central Minnesota. I see a lot of similarities here. I see a lot of like overlap. A lot of people that I interact with says these places are completely different. They have nothing in common. You can't take one thing from one place and bring it to another. You've lived in this cross spectrum of places. What do you bring from Missoula to New York City that makes you effective at what you do? What do you get out of living in New York City that helps you do this work when you're out in a Beaverton, Washington, or Oregon, for example.

  James Anderson 8:59

  I am probably one of the least cynical New Yorkers you're going to meet. And I attribute that 1,000% to having grown up in Missoula, Mont