Special Projects: COVID-19

Given our flexible, collaborative model, Civic Consulting Alliance is uniquely positioned to capture timely opportunities and address urgent challenges that advance our mission—to make the Chicago region a great place for everyone to live in and work. The COVID-19 crisis is one such challenge, given its global scale and its far-reaching impact on virtually all aspects of life for residents of the Chicago region.

COVID-19 CRISIS RESPONSE & INITIAL RECOVERY

In March, Civic Consulting Alliance answered calls from the City of Chicago, Cook County, the State of Illinois, and the philanthropic community to mobilize rapidly for a comprehensive and inclusive approach to COVID-19 crisis response and recovery. Between mid-March and the end of June, we redeployed about 75 percent of our staff and secured 16 pro bono teams to serve these units of government and engage non-government stakeholders through nearly 20 projects, organized into 10 distinct workstreams.

“Civic Consulting Alliance’s leadership and collaboration has been an invaluable part of our citywide response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to their expertise and support, Chicago has been able to uniquely support our businesses and residents, and to seize the opportunities created by this unprecedented year and extend our vision for a city economy rooted in our values of inclusion and equitable growth.”

— Lori E. Lightfoot, Mayor, City of Chicago

2020 COVID-19 Projects Snapshot

COVID-19 Crisis Response & Initial Recovery

Between mid-March and the end of June, we redeployed about 75 percent of our staff and secured 16 pro bono teams to serve these units of government and engage non-government stakeholders through nearly 20 projects, organized into 10 distinct workstreams.

“Civic Consulting Alliance’s leadership and collaboration has been an invaluable part of our citywide response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to their expertise and support, Chicago has been able to uniquely support our businesses and residents, and to seize the opportunities created by this unprecedented year and extend our vision for a city economy rooted in our values of inclusion and equitable growth. It’s that shared mission and sense of purpose that has guided us through the challenges we’ve faced, and as we move forward together, I am deeply excited to see what our partnership brings as we continue to embrace the many new opportunities and successes for our city that are sure to come.”

— Lori E. Lightfoot, Mayor, City of Chicago

From the beginning, the COVID-19 crisis has laid bare our city’s persistent racial inequities—disparities in access to education, health care, housing, and employment that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

These disparities, as well as the civil unrest we experienced over the summer, sharpened our focus and the focus of our clients on the need to center equity across our crisis response and recovery efforts. As a region, we will only ‘build back better’ if we can address these inequities and create a future where Chicago is truly a great place for everyone to live in and work, regardless of race, ethnicity, or zip code.

We are incredibly grateful to our philanthropic and corporate partners, whose generous support enabled Civic Consulting Alliance to invest more than $10.6 million in pro bono services in just 15 weeks in COVID-19-related projects across three phases, summarized below.

EXPLORE RESPONSE PHASES

Phase 1: Responding to the Crisis

Health Management

With the support of a pro bono partner team and embedded Civic Consulting Alliance staff, the Office of the Mayor and Chicago Department of Public Health developed a framework to prepare and monitor the healthcare response to the crisis.

Policy Interventions

Led by two distinct BCG pro bono teams, we helped prepare the Office of the Mayor’s policy team and the Cook County Office of the President to respond to the immediate economic impact of the crisis by creating tools to design, track, and implement policy initiatives, providing rapid research to inform policy decisions and sharing best practices from other parts of the country. The team working with the Mayor’s Office supported the formation of the Small Business Resiliency Fund, a Microbusiness Grant Recovery Program, and provided the analytical foundation for rental relief policies and additional relief to individuals not eligible for the Federal CARES package. The team supporting the County also advised the Bureau of Economic Development on how to equitably deploy stimulus funding in suburban Cook County.

“At the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, the Civic Consulting Alliance played a vital role in developing Cook County’s initial response. The research, project management, and other pro bono support provided by the Civic Consulting Alliance enabled the County to launch strategic rapid response initiatives and to set our priorities with community input. We are grateful for their support and look forward to continuing to work in partnership as we turn toward a long-term, equitable recovery.”

— Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Board President

A Slalom pro bono team supported the City’s Chief Small Business Officer and the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, building a visual dashboard to facilitate the equitable distribution of small and micro-business funding across the city. A second Slalom pro bono team revamped the City’s public-facing COVID-19 website to increase transparency and accessibility.

A pro bono team from Oliver Wyman provided general project management and communication support for the Cook County Community Recovery Initiative, which provides small businesses and independent contractors in suburban Cook County zero-interest loans and technical assistance. Baker McKenzie pro bono resources supported the County in developing contractual agreements with its selected loan fund administrator.

Finally, our staff led development of the “Cook County COVID-19 Response Plan," a report and strategic roadmap documenting the County's rapid response to COVID-19 and priorities for longer-term equitable recovery. We also crafted an engagement strategy to improve Cook County’s collaboration with more than 120 municipalities and unincorporated areas.

Racial Equity Rapid Response Team

In the first three months of the pandemic, three in four people in Chicago who died from COVID-19 were Black or Latinx. Chicago was one of the first cities in the nation to highlight this racial disparity. In mid-April, the City (led by its Chief Equity Officer, and Deputy Mayor for Education and Human Services) brought together West Side United, community leaders, and healthcare providers to form the Racial Equity Rapid Response (RERR) Team.

The RERR Team—with pro bono support from Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG, and Slalom alongside a Civic Consulting Alliance team—mobilized community- and data-driven rapid responses to address racial health disparities of the crisis; determined and implemented interventions to flatten the COVID-19 mortality curve in Chicago’s Black and Latinx communities; and built a foundation for future efforts to achieve racial health equity (including a Slalom dashboard that provides zip code-level health data, and a public commitment by 40 health care institutions to address racism as a public health crisis).

Building off this work, Civic Consulting Alliance has continued to support the healthcare provider working group in transforming their commitment into action. In the months ahead, we will sustain our work with the City and West Side United to determine how to amplify priority racial equity initiatives, including the Chicago Department of Public Health's “Healthy Chicago 2025” strategic plan. We have also continued to support the full RERR Team as the pandemic continues and immediate public health conditions change.

Philanthropic Response

“The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare the racial inequities—the economic, educational, and health disparities—that continue to shape our city. It was critical that Chicago’s philanthropic community come together to share knowledge and align resources to respond to this unprecedented challenge incoordination with the public sector, to help lay the foundation for sustained progress towards rectifying inequity. We are grateful to the Civic Consulting Alliance team for making it possible, through their dedication, responsiveness, and skill in managing such a diverse collaboration.”

— Ellen Alberding, President, The Joyce Foundation,
Sharon Bush, Executive Director, Grand Victoria Foundation, and
Gillian Darlow, CEO, Polk Bros. Foundation

In the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, the philanthropic community mobilized quickly. From the outset, Civic Consulting Alliance supported the convening of up to 160 members of this community on a weekly basis, initially led by The Joyce Foundation and Polk Bros. Foundation.

We engaged 11 philanthropic working groups (centered on issues like homelessness and immigration) and facilitated their interface with City leaders to align support with need. This initiative laid the groundwork for the creation of the Equitable Recovery Corps Fund (described below) to create sustainable jobs in healthcare.

Phase 2: Planning for Reopening

Reopening Guidelines

In mid-April, we supported an unprecedented level of collaboration between the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois, as both grappled with reopening following the shelter-in-place order.

A BCG pro bono team helped the Office of the Mayor to develop a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to reopening the city’s businesses. The BCG team managed 10+ industry working groups engaging 200+ organizations to co-create guidelines and procedures for a phased reopening that helped to reduce the risk of virus transmission and keep Chicagoans employed. These guidelines distinguished Chicago as one of the country’s most prepared cities to reopen.

A Kearney pro bono team modeled for the City its personal protective equipment (PPE) procurement needs and volume, and guided a PPE sourcing plan. Kearney and the City worked in parallel with another pro bono partner team on the Health Management workstream (described above) to translate projected COVID-19 scenarios into volume of PPE needed.

A Bain pro bono team supported the Office of the Governor by managing an internal working group to develop guidelines for private sector reopening included in the Governor’s “Restore Illinois” framework, which outlined the public health guidelines for reopening.

“The COVID-19 crisis has posed an unprecedented challenge on the health and economic wellbeing of communities across our state, requiring cross-sector collaboration as we work to combat this virus and protect Illinois residents. Thanks to support by the dedicated team at the Civic Consulting Alliance and many others who have provided input, Illinois has developed a framework for reopening that will help guide us in the months ahead as we strive to return people to work, reopen major industries, and restore our Illinois economy.”

— JB Pritzker, Governor, State of Illinois

Chicago Public Schools Reopening

Between mid-April and mid-June, an Accenture pro bono team collaborated with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to develop the “CPS Back to School Playbook” to support the district, schools, and families to return and recover from the closure of schools. They coordinated the CPS COVID Recovery Task Force, which developed an action plan for potential scenarios and phases of re-entry. While CPS later pivoted to fully remote learning due to public health conditions, this project gave the District the resources it needed to develop a reopening plan at a time when its staff were stretched to their limit.

Phase 3: Managing the Recovery

Recovery Task Force

With the Deputy Mayor for Economic and Neighborhood Development and the Mayor’s Chief of Policy, Civic Consulting Alliance and a pro bono partner team supported and managed the City’s Recovery Task Force (RTF). Made up of 100 members from across the public and private sectors, the RTF developed recommendations and an action plan to guide Chicago’s economic recovery and healing, with the goal of rebuilding a strong and inclusive economy aligned to the Mayor’s poverty elimination agenda.

The RTF built its recommendations on input from five issue-focused committees (Policy and Economic Stimulus, Mental and Emotional Health, Marketing and Business Development, Regional Coordination, and an economic Change Study) and on community feedback from three focus groups and a survey of 50,000 Chicago residents. In early July 2020, the City publicly released the RTF report, including 17 recommendations.

Building upon this foundational work, Civic Consulting Alliance and pro bono partner EY have gone on to design and implement a system to manage execution and stand up a Project Management Office (PMO) to guide RTF recommendations through 2023, aligning with the Mayor’s anti-poverty agenda—including INVEST South/West and STEP—to ensure inclusive, equitable economic development.

Mobile Services

In June, with pro bono support from Anjana Dalal, Civic Consulting Alliance supported the Deputy Mayor for Education and Human Services by developing a pilot mobile social service delivery program. The program brings a suite of services to residents where they live—increasing their accessibility during a time of great need, and reducing the risk of COVID-19 exposure at brick-and-mortar centers.

Chicago Youth Service Corps

A Slalom pro bono team worked with the Department of Family and Support Services to design the Chicago Youth Service Corps as part of One Summer Chicago. The Corps was a six-week remote program where over 1,500 youth earned money while supporting their city. It will likely be renewed in 2021 due to its success and popularity this year.

Chicagoland Equitable Recovery Corps

The COVID-19 crisis created mass unemployment that amplified existing systemic inequities. The Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance launched the Equitable Recovery Corps Fund in June, raising over $5 million to support more than 5,000 jobs connected to sustainable healthcare career pathways. Civic Consulting Alliance developed a framework to identify and evaluate workforce initiatives critical to an equitable economic recovery, and developed charters for preliminary pilot initiatives.

Building Back Better

This body of work demonstrates the unique, critical role that Civic Consulting Alliance plays in our region. When the COVID-19 crisis began, our staff rapidly launched the urgent workstreams above and our pro bono partners quickly provided the teams and fellows we would need to sustain this vital work. Through the summer and fall, Civic Consulting Alliance has continued to be central to COVID-19 response and recovery for many clients described in this impact report.

With the COVID-19 crisis ongoing, our momentum is not stopping. We remain focused on supporting our region’s leaders as they address the effects of this unprecedented crisis, as part of our work to make our systems more just, equitable, and resilient.

COVID-19 Crisis Response & Initial Recovery Funders

In addition to the many pro bono partners acknowledged above, the following corporate and foundation partners committed philanthropic support to fuel our staff investments in this critical work:

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General Operating Funders

Our ability to maintain our flexible and responsive capacity to get big things done in all platforms relied on those philanthropic partners who provided general operating support for our mission:

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