Evaluation
May 21, 2018
Mt. Auburn Associates final evaluation of the Working Cities Challenge first round in Massachusetts complete
Captures progress made by winning cities on core elements of WCC model
The Boston Fed partnered with the independent evaluation firm Mt. Auburn Associates to conduct a final evaluation of the Working Cities Challenge's first round in Massachusetts. It captures the progress made by winning cities—Chelsea, Fitchburg, Holyoke, and Lawrence—on core elements of the WCC model over the course of the implementation period, from January 2014 through September 2017.
The Working Cities Challenge was successful at incentivizing the following transformations in the four winning cities of Chelsea, Fitchburg, Holyoke, and Lawrence:
- The Chelsea Thrives team created an evidence-based, cross-sector crime prevention effort to identify and serve families with acute risk of crime, resulting in a successful pilot with over 205 families receiving the intervention. The effort saw crime igures decrease in the target neighborhood and at the city level.
- Fitchburg’s ReImagine North of Main engaged anchor institutions, city, and many organizational partners to focus the city’s redevelopment effort on a struggling neighborhood and the abutting downtown, ensuring that residents are a major focus of revitalization efforts. With major involvement from Fitchburg State University, they have created a $100 million pipeline of new investment opportunities, changed city property practices, engaged residents, and more.
- SPARK Initiative in Holyoke developed a data-driven ecosystem for jump-starting and accelerating a pipeline of Latino businesses in the city, with its initial effort supporting 70 entrepreneurs who established 33 new ventures and 82 new jobs, filled primarily by Latino and women residents.
- The Lawrence Working Families Initiative (LWFI) is a two-generation effort that coalesced regional employers, service providers, and the public school system to transform the local workforce supports for parents of students, connecting over 200 individuals to higher-paying jobs and introducing nearly 650 families to wrap-around services to help their children thrive.
Read the evaluation and an accompanying letter:
Additional information:
- Chelsea Evaluation Case Study from Mt. Auburn Associates
- Fitchburg Evaluation Case Study from Mt. Auburn Associates
- Holyoke Evaluation Case Study from Mt. Auburn Associates
- Lawrence Evaluation Case Study from Mt. Auburn Associates
- Mt. Auburn Associates Final Assessment of Massachusetts WCC Round 1 Progress, delivered before the Working Cities Challenge Roundtable
May 4, 2016
Mt. Auburn Associates mid-point evaluation of the Working Cities Challenge first round in Massachusetts complete
Captures progress made by winning cities on core elements of WCC model
The Boston Fed partnered with the independent evaluation firm Mt. Auburn Associates to conduct a mid-point evaluation of the Working Cities Challenge’s first round in Massachusetts. It captures progress made by winning cities on core elements of the WCC model in its first 18 months, from January 2014 through July 2015.
In short, based on Mt. Auburn Associates' assessment, the four multi-year winners of the Working Cities Challenge—Chelsea, Fitchburg, Holyoke, and Lawrence—are showing strong progress in forming and expanding cross-sector leadership groups to drive collective action toward shared goals. Additionally, community engagement is another area of notable progress. As highlighted in the evaluation, the city teams' efforts to involve residents and other stakeholders in authentic dialogues about issues and priorities for change offer new perspectives and opportunities in the targeted communities.
There are also areas for improvement. Cities must develop a data strategy to make progress over a long term in order to help drive change. Additionally, the Fed will make changes to the learning community gatherings, which convene teams (winning and non-winning) for capacity building and cross-site learning. The gatherings will be tailored to winning teams and tie directly to the work teams must complete for the Challenge.
Read the evaluation and an accompanying letter:
October 9, 2014
Mt. Auburn Associates baseline evaluation of Working Cities Challenge complete
Identifies gains in efforts impacting lives of low-income residents of smaller cities
The Boston Fed partnered with a professional evaluation firm, Mt. Auburn Associates in partnership with Abt. Associates, to evaluate the broad strengths and challenges of the inaugural round of the Working Cities Challenge to date.
The evaluation cites a number of strengths in the realm of cross-sector collaboration among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. By requiring a single application from communities, the Working Cities Challenge helped stakeholders to reach consensus on a single community goal. Cities saw the request for one application per city as the most influential component of the application process on the working relationships among partners. The evaluation also observes additional strengths in areas such as government leadership and long-term commitment to achieving large-scale results, for cities that received funding as well as those that did not.
The report also notes that while the level of cross-sector collaboration is fairly strong in the Working Cities, there is room for growth, particularly in working with the immigrant and business communities. The report highlights additional challenges in the areas of shared ownership, better aligning the goals and interests of city initiatives with other community priorities, and the tensions related to resident mobility and gentrification.
Evaluation documents