The American Cities Foundation was founded on a simple premise: our future as a country is fundamentally linked to the vitality of our urban communities.
Since 1992, we have been advocating for and developing a national strategy to revitalize our cities and improve the quality of life for children, youth and families who live in them. Founded by U.S. Representative Chaka Fattah as an outgrowth of the American Cities Conference held in Philadelphia in 1991, we share his vision for a national urban agenda that prioritizes the revitalization of America’s cities through a variety of innovative, multifaceted solutions.
Often these solutions lie in new region-wide collaborations to drive systemic change. Sometimes, they are found in changing the behavior and attitudes at the grassroots level. No matter the source or mechanism, ACF seeks to uncover and advance these ideas nationally. ACF serves both as a center of policy analysis and as the organizational midwife of community initiatives:
Best Practices Research: It is one of our most closely held beliefs that the solutions to many of urban America’s most vexing problems have already been found by community residents and the organizations that serve them. Our role is to uncover these national best practices and help disseminate information about them to those who need it most.
One example is our Best Practices in Urban Education report. Completed in September 2004, this research project presents findings about high performing urban schools. It identifies the best practices implemented by these schools, and shows the strategies used by administrators, teachers and parents that can serve as models to help schools in other urban settings maximize the academic success of their students.
We also sponsor roundtables to stimulate and highlight innovative thinking on public policy issues, such as our “How School Reform Becomes a Catalyst for Transforming Cities” session.
- Demonstration Projects: In addition to research, we are also an incubator of locally-based urban development efforts. An organization with national reach, we are based in Philadelphia and sponsor a number of demonstration programs that work directly with community residents across our city. Our purpose is not only to serve the residents of Philadelphia’s most challenged communities, but also to initiate and perfect programs that can serve as future national best practices. Examples of our demonstration initiatives include Project MARS, Project RISE, Project TRANSIT and Project NEAT.
- Leadership Development: We strive to identify, train, and support grassroots leadership because that is the best way to ensure the long-term health of our urban communities. Our Community Leadership Training Institute offers a structured curriculum to help nurture the next generation of community leaders.