Local policymakers across the US are working to ensure all residents and communities can access opportunities for economic mobility, stable and affordable housing, good health, and more. But the path to achieving those outcomes isn’t always clear.
The Policy and Systems Change Compass can help.
At Urban, our training and technical assistance experts use the Compass to help state and local governments and community partners align their policies, programs, plans, projects, and practices with residents’ needs. The Compass’s true north is to advance meaningful, sustainable policy and systems change.
Interested in applying the Compass in your community? Contact us to learn more about our training and technical assistance.
Working with cohorts of communities, individual agencies, and local teams, we tailor the Compass framework and our training and technical assistance to cover a range of policy issues and local contexts. Our support helps state and local governments and partners develop proactive, comprehensive approaches for addressing their communities’ most pressing priorities.
About the Project
The Policy and Systems Change Compass project began as a collaboration between the Urban Institute’s Research to Action Lab and the Cities of Opportunity (CoO) program at the National League of Cities (NLC). For two years, the project provided training and technical assistance for NLC’s peer learning cohorts and individual cities on more deliberative and thoughtful approaches to policymaking.
While local governments are uniquely positioned to address the complex issues that affect health and well-being, CoO observed that cities have succeeded in changing practices and systems but have been less successful in changing actual policies. CoO identified several reasons for this, including that cities often lack the staffing or strategic guidance needed to adopt and implement effective and sustained policy changes that address community problems.
In response to these challenges, Urban and NLC codeveloped and tested the Compass to help cities pursue strategic policy solutions to complex problems. You can read more about the full Compass process in our brief, “Developing a Policy and Systems Change Compass for Local Government.”
Today, Urban and NLC continue to collaborate with cities, counties, philanthropy and collective impact organizations in using the Compass to address their local challenges.
Our Team
Training and technical assistance: Martha Fedorowicz, Joseph Schilling, Annie Heinrichs, Violet Sulka-Hewes, and Samantha Atherton
Subject matter expertise: Sara McTarnaghan, Joseph Schilling, Violet Sulka-Hewes, and Samantha Atherton
Project management: Martha Fedorowicz and Joseph Schilling
NLC project partners: Lourdes Aceves, Megan Greig, and Becky O’Meara
The Compass development and 2023 and 2024 Compass cohorts were funded by the National League of Cities with generous support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. We would like to thank Sue Polis, formerly at the National League of Cities; Corianne Scally, formerly at the Urban Institute; and Dr. Katie Horton of the George Washington University School of Public Health for their thought leadership in helping to conceptualize and develop the Compass. We also thank John Wehmann and Alysheia Shaw-Dansby from the Urban Institute for designing the Compass graphic and Sarah Weller-Pegna, formerly at the National League of Cities, for her support and contributions to the 2023 and 2024 technical assistance cohorts.
