Jill Miller gives keynote at Civic Leader Summit in Pensacola

Jill Miller gives keynote at Civic Leader Summit in Pensacola

Photo Credit: Gregg Pachkowski / Pensacola News Journal

bi3 Fund President & CEO Jill Miller was one of five keynote speakers at the Civic Leader Summit that brought together community leaders, innovators, and changemakers from across the country to exchange knowledge, ideas, inspiration, and a shared goal of making the places we live the very best they can be.

In her keynote session, Jill guided attendees through strategies for addressing complex challenges facing communities—”wicked problems” like infant mortality, poverty, and health disparities. She shared the key ingredients to IGNITE community-level change, along with actionable tactics that civic leaders can put into practice:

  • Innovation: You must be willing to take risks and try new ideas and approaches to solve old problems.
  • Guide: Let the data guide your way.  Challenge assumptions, figure out what your most pressing problem really is by getting to root cause.
  • Narrative Change: Make the problem everyone’s problem and appeal to hearts and minds.
  • Influence: Find your champions who have influence and engage in advocacy.
  • Trust: Learn how to build trust with community members so you can co-create solutions with those who are most affected by your wicked problem.
  • Engage: Engage those most impacted by the problem to build movements and co-design solutions.  People know what they want and need.

Jill also provided a walkthrough of the framework that she and Cradle Cincinnati Executive Director Dr. Meredith C. Smith wrote about in Infant Mortality and Other Wicked Problems.

In total, more than 400 people attended the summit in Pensacola, Florida, to focus on creating vibrant, resilient, and thriving communities.

Quint Studer, a bi3 Fund Board Member, is the founding member and benefactor of the Center for Civic Engagement, which hosted the summit in partnership with the nonprofit organization Strong Towns.

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