Collaborating and Learning Across the Nation
A two-year pilot project, Forward Cities was an unprecedented collaborative effort among leaders in New Orleans, Detroit, Durham, and Cleveland to catalyze new levels of inclusive innovation and entrepreneurship.
This cross-city learning collaborative kicked off with a conference in New Orleans in 2014 and formally culminated in the summer of 2016 with a conference in Cleveland, attended by more than 300 people, that touched on such issues as immigration, globalization, and the role anchor institutions and philanthropy can play in creating more vibrant and inclusive regional economies.
As a result of this work, donors in each of the cities have made inclusive innovation and entrepreneurship a central enduring strategy in their philanthropic activities.