A new standard for collaborative and inclusive innovation

Engage Pittsburgh was born from a desire to engage a large cross-section of Pittsburghers—especially young, creative, and civically engaged individuals—in shaping their community. The Sprout Fund sought to create a new, high-profile way to foster innovative ideas and develop a transparent, RFP-based model to support community-driven projects.

The initiative launched on September 9, 2006, with the Idea Round Up, a day-long civic symposium. This event brought together 300 attendees for facilitated dialogues, using a pioneering model of graphic facilitation from partner Alphachimp Studio. This single event produced a community blueprint of 100 innovative ideas.

The dialogue that began at the Idea Round Up was sustained and expanded online at engagepittsburgh.org. This unique community-bulletin board allowed participants and nearly 100 new users to comment, critique, and refine the 100 ideas. Sprout then invited nearly 50 subject-matter experts to add technical knowledge, helping to narrow the field to 20 top concepts.

Through a final idea clustering phase and consultation with local leaders, Sprout translated the community’s desires into five formal Requests for Proposals (RFPs). These RFPs, which ranged from public art to alternative transportation, were issued to the public on March 26, 2007. The grassroots process proved successful, attracting 19 proposals, with two-thirds coming from organizations new to The Sprout Fund.

Ultimately, four innovative projects were funded, bringing community-generated ideas to life. More importantly, Engage Pittsburgh established a new model for public engagement that combined in-person brainstorming with sustained online collaboration. The lessons learned and the graphic facilitation methods pioneered in this program proved “incalculably valuable” and were directly carried over into future, larger-scale initiatives like Pittsburgh 250 Community Connections.

Program In Brief