Why? The pandemic. As each of Civic Exchange’s 8 member companies navigated pivots large and small to adjust to the ongoing reality of COVID-19, it became harder to justify paying for downtown office space that no one could safely use. We will continue to participate in the We Will Chicago Citywide plan and continue our work on the City that Works for All re-imagining events with a series on harm reduction and creation of care in Journalism coming soon.
Reimagine Chicago Broadband
On Wednesday, October 20, 2021, Civic Exchange convened a panel of experts on broadband, internet access, and digital literacy to help answer the question: how can we ensure that everyone in Chicago has access to high speed internet?
Late last month, Civic Exchange member organization CHANGE IL hosted a reimaging event to explore the following questions: What can we do to disrupt polarization in our communities? How do we interrupt hyper-partisanship to get our government working for all of us?
Recapping our First Re-imagining Event: Reconnecting Students to their School Communities
Last month, Civic Exchange hosted its first reimagining event! Member organization Chalkbeat Chicago gathered educators, students, administrators, and community members to discuss the disruptions students experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. For some students, these disruptions resulted in a complete disconnection from school - attendance dropped for many students and others disappeared from the classroom completely.
Reconnecting Families to School
Recently, Chalkbeat Chicago’s reporting has delved into the ways the pandemic has disconnected a disturbing number of families from their school communities. For some students, this disconnection looked like spotty attendance. Other students completely disappeared from their classrooms. This current challenge in Chicago’s Public Schools inspired Chalkbeat Chicago’s re-imagining conversation topic.
Where do we go from here? — New opportunities for repair and progress
While it’s likely that we’ll still be dealing for some time with both the trauma and languishing created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the days ahead are finally starting to look a bit different than those behind us.…the leaders of each of Civic Exchange Chicago’s member organizations are assessing what opportunities, for both repair and progress, lay ahead.
Help us Reimagine Chicago!
We’ve all noticed it: too many things are not working. Gridlocked government. Obstructions to civic engagement. Increases in childhood hunger and poverty. Decreases in life expectancy.
The list of our challenges is long. Or, as we like to say at Civic Exchange, we are in a moment rife with opportunity.
My Path to Finding Civic Exchange Chicago
My work will be an effort to support conversations that allow us to pause as we return to our lives and first ask: how can we reimagine a more inclusive and more engaged world?
A City That Works … For All: Join us in 2021
If you dream of a more fair and equitable future for all Chicagoans and if you’ve got experience in making a client’s strategic vision a reality, along with the ability to design, plan and produce online and in-person events, we’d be thrilled to hear from you!
Innovating to Meet the Challenges of 2020
Watching how each member organization has responded to multiple events at once—a global pandemic, police brutality, nationwide protests and upcoming presidential election—has not only inspired Civic Exchange’s founders, but also expanded their vision for what Civic Exchange is and could be.
Civic Exchange Members Respond to COVID-19
At a recent virtual Founders Exchange meeting, representatives of each Civic Exchange Chicago organization provided an update on their efforts to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.
Collision and Collaboration: Civic Exchange Celebrates First Year
At a recent open house event, the co-founders of Civic House Chicago, as well as the founders of each member organization, shared their recent initiatives, highlighting the role that collaboration plays within Civic Exchange Chicago.
Managing Teams: Distributed, On-site or In-Between
The founders of each Civic Exchange company have found that by sharing a collaborative space with one another, they’ve been able to see firsthand the opportunities and challenges each organization faces in their approach to managing distributed, on-site and hybrid teams.
Civic Exchange: Elections 2020
Civic Exchange is a learning community and co-working space comprised of 8 startups working at the intersection of news & information, data, and technology. In 2020, many of these companies have a special focus on elections - from how to make them more safe and secure, to helping voters understand the issues at stake and the candidates competing for votes. In early January 2020, we gathered to share our plans, identify possibilities for collaboration, and understand how we could best support one another’s efforts.
Announcing Civic Exchange Chicago
Eight unique Chicago startups and nonprofits have joined together to launch Civic Exchange, a co-working office and ideas hub with a purpose: to improve the use of news, information and technology for democracy and freedom. Leveraging their expertise across media, tech, government, advocacy, and social services, the group has opened a Loop co-working office and events space from which they soon will launch a civic ideas series.