I sat down with Cara Eckholm, a multi-hyphenate founder and civic tech/engagement specialist, to talk about Pitchfest—a project of PilotCity and the third iteration of a matching program between NYC city agencies and interested university researchers, supported by foundations and non-profit funders. It’s not complicated, but it is essential given how challenging it is to administer the needs of a $120 billion+ budget each year.

I attended the afternoon sessions related to the built environment, where the packed house listened to dozens of one-minute pitches. Principal Investigators, university professors who are allowed to fundraise, sat with me and listened to research proposals they’d like to work on, supported by philanthropy.

If you are qualified to support proposals, please make sure to submit an interest form here:

I’ve linked to the full deck below (Substack doesn’t allow me to embed a PDF!)

The ones you care about start on Slide 86, but I really recommend skimming through the whole deck to learn about agencies and city-led initiatives doing the public’s work that you definitely haven’t ever heard of.

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