Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gabrielle Fialkoff, Senior Advisor to the Mayor and Director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships, today released New York City Partnerships: Strategic Partnerships for a More Inclusive and Equitable City, a report summarizing the progress and effect of public-private partnerships and the $400 million raised by city affiliated non-profits during the first four years of the Administration.
New Yorkers across the city have been impacted by these partnerships. Through the work of the Office and their partners over 40,000 community school students have received free prescription glasses from Warby Parker, 25,000 pounds of produce from Farms at NYCHA have been distributed, and homicides are down 18% in Cure Violence neighborhoods.
“We believe that in order to make New York City the fairest big city in America, our private, nonprofit and business sectors must work together,” said Mayor de Blasio. “Through the Office of Strategic Partnerships, we’ve connected our philanthropic and business partners across the City to bring services and opportunities to more New Yorkers than ever before.”
“Cities can and must lead as social and civic innovators, particularly in the face of political and fiscal challenges. Growing inequality -- in income, access to affordable housing or high quality schools or healthcare -- threatens opportunity for all,” said Gabrielle Fialkoff, Senior Advisor to the Mayor and Director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships. “Our goal is to find and scale new solutions to age-old problems by bringing the public and private sectors together to address challenges and improve the lives of all New Yorkers.”
The Office of Strategic Partnerships has worked with the City-affiliated independent nonprofit organizations or “Funds” and City Agency partners to implement innovative public-private partnerships leveraged by the expertise, resources, and skills of the business, philanthropic and non-profit sectors. Over $400 million was raised for public-private partnerships during the first term to address inequality through the City affiliated Funds; the Mayor’s Fund to Advance NYC, the Fund for Public Health in NYC, the Fund for Public Schools, the Fund for Public Housing, NYC Police Foundation, FDNY Foundation, and the Aging in New York Fund.
The report highlights the impacts of three types of strategic partnerships:
1. Partnerships that Develop and Test Innovative, Evidence Based Models. Here, private or philanthropic funds act as risk capital and are deployed to pilot a new programmatic approach. Rigorous evaluation follows program roll out.
· Connections to Care - 1,000 community based organization staff trained in evidence-based mental health interventions providing screening and referrals to 9,000 New Yorkers to date and 40,000 over five years
2. Partnerships that Drive Systems Change. These partnerships are interventions that institutionalize new methods of effective service delivery–often a boldly different approach to a problem– and where a relatively small dollar investment can drive significant and systemic change.
· Computer Science For All - all 1.1 million NYC public school students will receive computer science education by 2025
· The Center for Youth Employment - 100,000 internships, mentorships and summer jobs per year for NYC’s youth
· Service Design Studio - provided 80 office hour sessions for more than 29 City agencies to feature human-centered design in their work
· Gun Violence Reduction- $20 million committed annually by the City to expand proven gun violence reduction programs to 17 precincts—based on the success of the Cure Violence public-private partnership
3. Partnerships that Enlist Private Capital to Complement, Enhance, and Leverage Public Investment. These are partnerships in which relatively small amounts of private capital can complement, enhance, and leverage already significant public investment to achieve improved outcomes and fully realize the potential of these commitments.
· Vision Care with Warby Parker - Over 40,000 Community School students received eye exams and free, stylish prescription glasses from Warby Parker with more than 150,000 students screened for vision issues.
· Building Healthy Communities – Program to improve health and wellness in 12 historically underserved neighborhoods. Established first in the nation farms on public housing property, delivered 25,000 pounds of free fresh food, trained 150 local volunteer instructors trained to give free bilingual exercise classes, planned construction for 50 mini soccer fields, engaged over 150 community partners
· Get Alarmed NYC- 155,000 free photoelectric combination smoke/carbon monoxide alarms installed in homes of tens of thousands of City residents in at-risk communities
· NYCitizenship - 9,000 immigrants engaged through NYCitizenship, 1,600 screened for citizenship eligibility, 800 applications assisted resulting in 200 new citizens in year one of program.
