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White House Climate Accelerator Launches, Announces Partnership with Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities
White House Climate Accelerator Launches, Announces Partnership with Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities
Published 09-24-15
Submitted by GoodCompany Group
GoodCompany Ventures, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) are today announcing a partnership to launch a Climate Ventures 2.0 Innovation Exchange. Climate Ventures 2.0’s platform will assist 100RC member cities to address climate threats by mobilizing entrepreneurial responses and developing exemplary innovations that can have a real effect on climate threats at the city level.
“Over the past six years, we have seen the effectiveness of GoodCompany Ventures’ intensive, peer-driven approach in expanding the aspiration, ability and impact of social entrepreneurs,” said Garrett Melby, Managing Director of GoodCompany Ventures, “I can’t wait to see what these entrepreneurs achieve when we apply that approach to the 100 Resilient Cities network, while supporting them with the access to funding, expertise and partners that Climate Ventures 2.0 provides.”
In December 2014, GoodCompany Ventures, unveiled Climate Ventures 2.0, in collaboration with the White House’s Climate Data Initiative. The CDI aligns administration efforts to make data on climate threats open and actionable with ambitious corporate and institutional commitments to share data and technology resources. The tool will be available to members of 100RC’s network, and will be used to help design and implement the cities’ long term Resilience Strategy, including:
Understanding from Chief Resilience Officers in 100RC cities what the most acute threats and immediate needs are, in order to address climate threats to food and water security.
Building on this understanding to source and select social entrepreneurs with technologies equipped to address these needs directly in 100RC member cities.
Pilot and launch these innovations in the 100RC cities where a clear need presents itself.
“Cities can’t just build resilience out of thin air – they need the right tools to do it,” said Michael Berkowitz, President of 100RC. “By providing support from GoodCompany Ventures to our network cities, we hope to engage entrepreneurial thinking and local in
novation to harness unique solutions to climate threats. 100 Resilient Cities is excited to see this program in action as our cities tackle a wide range of climate threats in the years and decades ahead.”
100RC is dedicated to helping cities become more resilient to the ‘shocks’ – catastrophic events like hurricanes, fires, and floods – and ‘stresses’ – slow-moving disasters like wa- ter shortages, homelessness, and unemployment – they increasingly face in the 21st cen- tury. Each city in the 100RC network receives four concrete types of support:
Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city’s resilience efforts;
Technical support for development of a robust resilience strategy;
Access to solutions, service providers, and partners from the private, public and NGO sectors who can help them develop and implement their resilience strategies; and
Membership of a global network of member cities who can learn from and help each other.
Climate Ventures 2.0’s structure builds upon GoodCompany Ventures’ success in developing a public-private partnership with the City of Philadelphia and the Wharton Social Impact Initiative to foster urban innovation that was awarded a $1mm Mayor’s Challenge prize by Bloomberg Philanthropies. This program, known as FastFWD, validated a model for public-private collaboration that CV2 aims to replicate at a much larger scale, leveraging the abundant resources of the CDI, and those of all of its committed parties.
About 100 Resilient Cities
100 Resilient Cities - Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) is dedicated to helping cities become more resilient to social, economic and physical challenges they are increasingly facing in the 21st century. 100RC provides this assistance through: funding for a Chief Resilience Officer who will lead the resilience efforts; resources for drafting a resilience building strategy; access to private sector, public sector, and NGO created resilience tools; and membership in a global network of peer cities to share best practices and challenges. 100RC currently has sixty-seven member cities. For more information, visit: www.100resilientcities.org.
About GoodCompany Ventures
GoodCompany Ventures transforms innovators into entrepreneurs and dreamers into doers. We provide entrepreneurs resources to envision persistent social problems as market opportunities, design business models that support long-term social change, and mobilize capital to maximize their impact. Now in its sixth year, GoodCompany Ven-tures graduates have raised over $60mm to fuel their social missions. GoodCompany Ventures is a 501(c)3 non-profit funded by grants from the Knight Foundation, Halloran Philanthropies and Bloomberg Philanthropies. To learn more about GoodCompany Ven- tures, visit http://goodcompanygroup.org/
GoodCompany Group
GoodCompany Group
For entrepreneurs and investors who believe there is a better way, GoodCompany helps the most promising social innovators realize their full impact through applying rigorous analysis, deploying proven growth strategies and matching capital resources from the business and venture community.
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