The Rise Together Innovation Center has launched a search for a Search Firm to help hire an Executive Director to lead its work of coordinating long- and short-term efforts to mitigate poverty and improve economic mobility, family stability and equitable access to opportunity across Franklin County. The Center is responsible for convening community partners, aligning systems and implementing the Rise Together Blueprint to Reduce Poverty in Franklin County, in addition to vetting other big ideas. United Way of Central Ohio is proud to be serving as the fiscal agent of the Innovation Center.
Reporting to the Innovation Center Board of Directors, the Executive Director will have overall strategic and operational responsibility for the Center’s staff, programs and execution of its mission.
Click here to download a pdf of the Innovation Center’s Executive Search Firm RFP: Search Firm RFP 061020 (1)
Rise Together Overview
The Franklin County Commissioners began an initiative in 2018 to analyze the causes of poverty that are unique to central Ohio and the resources that are available in our community, and also to create a plan to more effectively bring those resources to bear on the problem with a community-wide, systematic approach. They assembled a steering committee of subject matter experts and community members from all walks of life, hosted conversations with hundreds of Franklin County residents who are living in poverty, and studied nationwide best practices.
The steering committee produced the Rise Together Blueprint for Reducing Poverty in Franklin County that includes a list of more than 120 goals, action steps and recommendations to be worked on, to which the commissioners added some actions they could take right away. Together, they form the basis of a plan to address poverty in Franklin County, the first step of which is a collaboration with the Columbus business community.
The new initiative involves the creation of the Innovation Center, led by a leadership committee headed by Trudy Bartley of The Ohio State University and Matt Habash of the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. The Innovation Center will take on three of the goals identified in the blueprint and study the big idea of piloting universal childcare and early childhood education for Franklin County residents.
The blueprint is made up of two parts: a set of recommendations from the steering committee and a plan of action to which the county is committed. This blueprint will not eradicate poverty, but if it can help reduce the degree to which someone’s race, gender, religion, ZIP code or parents’ income determines their chance at the American Dream, it will have been a success.
We encourage you to take the time to understand this blueprint for addressing poverty in our community. It is a challenge that we must all face together, and we ask you to join us in this effort.
Click here to download the Rise Together Blueprint: FRANK-Report-1-10-Web-Ready-(Large)_1
