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A healthy city is one that is continually creating and improving those physical and social environments and expanding those community resources which enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and developing to their maximum potential.

The League of California Cities is an association of California city officials who work together to enhance their knowledge and skills, exchange information, and combine resources so that they may influence policy decisions that affect cities.

This beta version of the site is only the start. Over time, its functionality will be steadily enhanced. The cluster organization database will be enriched with additional information about those organizations who want to share their profiles and activities. Geographical mapping capabilities will be dramatically enhanced. A broad range of comparative data about regional business environments will be added. And the site will provide a growing library of resources and tools to enable practitioners to make the most out of the data available.

Smarter Cities, a project of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-profit 501(c)(3), is a multimedia web initiative whose aim is to be a news-you-can-use web portal for and about cities striving to make themselves "smarter" - more efficient, sustainable, equitable and livable.

It's time for the arts to get the respect and the resources they deserve. It is becomingly increasingly obvious that the arts make major contributions to the quality of life of our communities and societies, but it is also clear to us that arts have a major role in helping us discover those innovative ways of operating and being with each other that will allow us to build a truly sustainable future.

The California Arts Council is committed to building public will and resources for the arts; fostering accessible arts initiatives that reflect contributions from all of California's diverse populations; serving as a thought leader and champion for the arts; and providing excellent, effective, and relevant programs and services.

DataDrivenJournalism.net is a hub for news and resources from the community of journalists, editors, designers and developers who use data to support journalism. The website is part of an European Journalism Centre initiative dedicated to accelerating the diffusion and improving the quality of data journalism around the world. We also run the online course Doing Journalism with Data as well as the School of Data Journalism, and are behind the acclaimed Data Journalism Handbook.

The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC) is the nation's newest people-powered department, founded on the truth that art and culture are our most powerful and under-tapped resources for social change. Radically inclusive, useful and sustainable, and vibrantly playful, the USDAC aims to spark a grassroots, creative change movement, engaging millions in performing and creating a world rooted in empathy, equity, and social imagination. 

"The classic example of that backward intuition was my own introduction to systems analysis, the world model. Asked by the Club of Rome to show how major global problems - poverty and hunger, environmental destruction, resource depletion, urban deterioration, unemployment - are related and how they might be solved, Forrester made a computer model and came out with a clear leverage point1: Growth. Not only population growth, but economic growth. Growth has costs as well as benefits, and we typically don't count the costs - among which are poverty and hunger, environmental destruction, etc. - the whole list of problems we are trying to solve with growth! What is needed is much slower growth, much different kinds of growth, and in some cases no growth or negative growth."

OuiShare is a global community and think and do-tank. Our mission is to build and nurture a collaborative society by connecting people, organizations and ideas around fairness, openness and trust. We believe that economic, political and social systems based on these values can solve many of the complex challenges the world faces, and enable everyone to access to the resources and opportunities they need to thrive. OuiShare activities consist of building community, producing knowledge and incubating projects around the topics of communities and the collaborative economy, as well as offering support to individuals and organizations through professional services and education. Started in January 2012 in Paris, OuiShare is now an international leader in the collaborative economy field. A non-profit organization which has rapidly evolved from a handful of enthusiasts to a global movement in dozens of countries in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, our network of expert Connectors engage hundreds of members and contributors worldwide.

IAP2 USA advances public participation in the United States by providing its affiliate members with tools and information to conduct high-quality public participation processes, by providing government, industry, nonprofit organizations and participants with educational resources to increase the quality and value of their participation in such processes, and by advocating for quality public participation programs based on our Core Values and Code of Ethics.

FSG is a mission-driven consulting firm supporting leaders in creating large-scale, lasting social change. Through strategy, evaluation, and research we help many types of actors - individually and collectively - make progress against the world's toughest problems. Our teams work across all sectors by partnering with leading foundations, businesses, nonprofits, and governments in every region of the globe. We seek to reimagine social change by identifying ways to maximize the impact of existing resources, amplifying the work of others to help advance knowledge and practice, and inspiring change agents around the world to achieve greater impact.

Group model building (GMB) is a participatory approach that is widely used to build the capacity of practitioners to think in a systems way. However, it is a resource-intensive approach that requires high-level buy-in and the investment of time. We discuss the evidence, including a systematic review of the literature examining the effectiveness of GMB approaches across a wide range of contexts. The results of the review are generally positive and suggest that GMB improves problem understanding, increases engagement in systems thinking, builds confidence in the use of systems ideas and develops consensus for action among diverse stakeholders.

The Project on Social Innovation provides this virtual knowledge hub for social innovation in cities and municipalities. Its purpose is to provide a practical platform for sharing the stories and lessons of exciting innovators from the nonprofit, philanthropic and public sectors. The Project on Social Innovation accomplishes this purpose through an innovator's toolkit, relevant news updates, profiles of best practices, regular blogging, and links to other online resources. The site is an initiative of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

The American Library Association (ALA) is the oldest and largest library association in the world. Founded on October 6, 1876 during the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the mission of ALA is "to provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all."

The P2P Foundation is an international organization focused on studying, researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices in a very broad sense. This wiki is our knowledge commons. Our motto is "Together we know everything, together we have everything", i.e. pooling our resources through commons, creates prosperity for all. We document thousands of initiatives going in that direction on order to create "Hope with evidence".

California's Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) brings together the state's recycling and waste management programs and continues a tradition of environmental stewardship.

Facebook page - Anyone can join the Participedia community and help crowdsource, catalogue and compare participatory political processes around the world. All content on Participedia is collaboratively produced and open-source under a Creative Commons License. Explore: Search, read, download and gain insight from our database of cases, methods, and organizations. Create: Help improve the quality of this knowledge resource by editing existing content or publishing your own. Teach: Use Participedia in the classroom as a tool to engage students and showcase their research.

Participedia's searchable database of democratic innovations is made up of three distinct content types including Cases, Methods and Organizations. Bolstering this knowledge base are added resources, including surveys, teaching tools and external data sets. The initial vision for Participedia was developed by Archon Fung (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) and Mark E. Warren (Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia), and is guided by a set of standing committees.