Celebrating our partners!
Last week, we brought together our People's Money Partners, TRIE Partners, and Implementation Partners, as well as our pilot cohort of Youth Ambassadors, for our Partner Appreciation Breakfast. From helping collect project ideas to getting out the vote to implementing the winning projects — and so much in between — our partners make our work possible.
Held at Gibney Dance, the event was a joyful morning of food, community, and celebration of our collective work to engage and empower New Yorkers. We also held an awards ceremony where we recognized partners' accomplishments, from most votes to most creative outreach and more. Special congratulations to our five Rookie of the Year winners — Bangladesh Academy of Fine Arts in the Bronx, Fifth Ave Committee in Brooklyn, Domingo in Manhattan, Practical Knowledge in Queens, and Nonprofit Staten Island — who represented each borough and demonstrated exceptional leadership in their first year as CEC partners!
We're so grateful to continue working with some of these incredible organizations again this year, and are excited to bring in new cohorts of partners to reach new communities around the city.
"What's in Your Borough?" is here! Watch the series on our YouTube!
We're thrilled to share that this year's "What's in Your Borough?" YouTube series has officially begun, following the 20 community-led projects selected by New Yorkers through The People's Money in 2025. Every week, we'll be sharing how last year's winning ideas are coming to life across the five boroughs, from youth arts programs to job training, housing access, and more.
Watch the series on our YouTube channel!
Participatory and Inclusive Neighborhood Democracy in New York City
Last month, we held the "Participatory and Inclusive Neighborhood Democracy in New York City" event in partnership with the National Civic League and Perfect City, and hosted by Columbia World Projects. Thank you to the Luce Foundation for helping make this work possible!
The event was a combination of a civic performance called "Community Board," with a script performed by meeting attendees and taken from actual community board transcripts, followed by a presentation of the research findings gathered so far in the project. It was amazing to welcome over 90 New Yorkers with such passion for improving civic engagement! — this event would not have been a success without the rich diversity of perspectives coming from current and former community board members and staff, civil society, government workers, artists, and residents.
One takeaway we heard was that participants want to see public meetings as well-organized, collaborative, action-oriented spaces that prioritize dialogue, relationship-building, and meaningful follow-up rather than one-way presentations.
Next, the Better Public Meetings NYC team will review the themes from our public discussion to incorporate them into our final research report, which will include recommendations and potential pilot programs to strengthen civic participation. Learn more about the Better Public Meetings project here!
Our work is not done — here's how you can shape what comes next.
→ Take the survey: We are still taking responses through our Community Survey, which broadly examines local civic life. Take the survey, powered by our partner ActiVote, here!
→ Share your best practices: Do you work closely with a community board and want to share specific promising practices that other boards should adopt? Submit them to our promising practice form here!
→ Lastly, if you want to bring this work, including future pilot project recommendations, to your community board, please contact us! Please reach out to bsolotaire@civicengagement.nyc.gov to learn more.
Civic Leader Spotlight: Dr. Alister Martin and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
In recognition of August being National Wellness Month, we're highlighting Dr. Alister Martin, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, for this month's Civic Leader Spotlight.
A native New Yorker from Jackson Heights and an emergency physician, Dr. Martin has spent his career advancing not only health, but civic health. Before becoming the City's Health Commissioner, he founded Vot-ER, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that integrates civic engagement into healthcare. Vot-ER works with healthcare providers to help patients register and prepare to vote, driven by the belief that communities are healthier when more people can participate in democracy.
Dr. Martin is also the CEO of A Healthier Democracy, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening healthcare and community organizing. Through A Healthier Democracy and initiatives including Vot-ER and Link Health, another nonprofit initiative founded by Martin, he has built public health programs that have mobilized tens of thousands of healthcare providers and reached millions of patients — from supporting vaccination campaigns and voter registration to connecting families with cash assistance benefits and shaping public health policy at the federal and state levels.
Across these initiatives, Dr. Martin has built a career at the intersection of clinical care, public health, and civic participation. Before returning to New York, he served as a senior advisor in the office of Vice President Kamala Harris as a White House Fellow, as well as a health policy advisor to Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont and Congressman Raul Ruiz of California. He earned his MD from Harvard Medical School as a Presidential Scholar and his Master in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.
From his work in the emergency room to building new models for civic engagement in healthcare to leading the City's public health agency, his career reflects a belief that healthy communities go hand in hand with healthy democracies. We're excited to highlight Dr. Martin's work and look forward to working together to strengthen civic engagement and build healthier, more connected communities across New York City.
Recapping the Civic Design Forum: The People's Money Data Design Sprint
Earlier this summer, we partnered with the Service Design Studio at the Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity to host the Civic Design Forum: The People's Money Data Design Sprint at the CUNY Graduate Center.
The day-long workshop brought together over 50 public servants from 24 city agencies to explore how community-generated data from The People's Money can shape more responsive public services. Using thousands of ideas submitted by New Yorkers through our citywide participatory budgeting process, participants worked together to identify community priorities, develop service concepts, and learn human-centered design methods that put residents' voices at the center of government decision-making
This forum — part of a recurring series run by the Service Design Studio — highlighted how participatory democracy can inform better policy and service delivery while strengthening collaboration across city agencies.
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