The Young Leaders Academy (YLA) was developed by Workforce Boulder County (WFBC) and Community Action Programs (CAP) to cultivate BIPOC future leaders and entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds. YLA creates a pipeline of diverse talent to a variety of sectors across Boulder County while having positive future economic implications, and academic, and health-related outcomes for its BIPOC youth participants.

The Grove at Harford was founded as an outlet for farmers, artists, and food processors in Harford County to sell their products directly to local consumers and to promote local agriculture commerce and sustainability. Billed as “Harford County’s agribusiness incubator,” the Grove is an open-air building with eight interior stalls, with two kiosks and exterior stands available, each leased to a local agricultural entrepreneur with varying handcrafted products and specialties. The creation of The Grove at Harford was a collaboration between numerous Harford County departments – Administration, Agriculture, Community and Economic Development, Facilities and Operations, and Parks and Recreation – to fill the need for a local marketplace and to give vendors a centralized, direct connection to customers in a rural part of the county. The Grove also serves as an event space for festivals, farmers markets, and more, functioning as a gathering place for county residents to enjoy food, entertainment, and to support local business. After construction is completed in 2022 on a playground, pavilion, and trail system, the Grove location will complete its transformation into an agricultural destination for all Harford County families to enjoy.

In 2007, Santa Barbara County sought to change how it managed solid waste by using new technologies and new facilities that would address California's climate change mandates and decrease the landfilling of waste. Santa Barbara has historically shown innovative leadership in environmental policy, and this tradition continues with the ReSource Center. The ReSource Center is the first operation in California to house a materials recovery facility, anaerobic digestion facility, compost management unit, and landfill all at one location. This comprehensive project recovers recyclable materials, transforms organics into landscape nutrients, and creates renewable energy. With these new facilities, approximately 60% of additional waste from the community's trash cans is diverted from the landfill, bringing the region's diversion rate above 85% while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The project required over a decade of skillful coordination of regional interests, a comprehensive public outreach plan, a thorough environmental review process, and public financing for Santa Barbara County's largest single capital project to date.

Palm Beach County’s Community Services Department (CSD) provides a comprehensive range of programs to assist low-income households with basic needs and remove barriers to self-sufficiency. One program is the Rental Assistance program, where Palm Beach County residents in need (meeting certain income thresholds) can receive assistance to pay their rent. Through the severe economic downturn, CSD has seen the need for this assistance rise sharply and has adapted to this increased need, along with the need to maintain social distancing, by moving to an online-application process through the Online System for Community Access to Resources and Social Services (OSCARSS). Unfortunately with the dramatic increase in applications, CSD has also seen a large increase in fraud attempts, as well as an increase in clients applying through multiple systems in an effort to receive assistance quickly. In order to prevent duplication of benefits, combat fraud and ensure that the limited available funding goes to the residents who truly need it, CSD has implemented a variety of robust quality assurance and fraud mitigation strategies and has prevented improper payments totaling $982,608 as of 3/31/2022.

The Lassen County Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) in rural Northern California created a Fatherhood Initiative to 1) build trust toward the department amongst non-custodial fathers, 2) provide education about services, and 3) develop a community-wide sense of the value of child support. The multi-pronged, ongoing Fatherhood Initiative includes outreach and education components, and it is flexible and continuously incorporates new information, so that the department can focus on the components that produce the most effective results. Key initiative components include educational and trust-building social media content, interdepartmental and regional ally outreach, network building, national discussion participation, and participant surveys. Though the Fatherhood Initiative is in an early stage, it has already produced positive results. Many Lassen County non-custodial fathers express surprise at their respectful treatment throughout the case process; they report they would have opened cases themselves or would have cooperated earlier had they realized the experience would be pleasant and helpful. We expect more regional fathers to open child support cases and improve parent-child connections. This program is highly replicable, and the Child Support Directors’ Association of California has shared components of the program to help other departments implement their own initiatives.

The Main Library (a branch of the Yuma County Library District) began developing the Smart Start Kit program to offer children and their caregivers early literacy through take-home interactive kits. This program was designed to help the Library better serve its youth population by exposing children to high-quality early learning. The Library provided a variety of kits with different themes that included books and teaching materials for their caretakers to use community resources. Through participation in this program, the children would have access to high-quality learning experiences rich in language and literacy that would help reduce learning gaps and ensure that children are ready to start reading when they enter kindergarten. Because families are a child's first teachers, it is vital to strengthen their role by providing the necessary tools to succeed academically. The smart Start Kits program was launched in October 2019, and the kits were available for any patron to borrow. The kits contained carefully selected children's books, music, toys, and puzzles that caregivers could use to help profoundly influence literacy and language development, the foundations for all other learning. The varied themes included animals, counting, alphabet, special needs, space, nursery rhymes, transportation, bilingualism, and beginner's science.

The County of San Diego Deferred Compensation Program provides 457(b) and 401(a) plans to nearly 21,000 current and former employees. As of Jan. 31, 2022, the program had assets of over $2.2 billion. The County created “Investing Learn to Earn virtual event (Learn to Earn)” as a way for people to receive plan information in a simple, engaging way. It was important to create something that would require no explanation, because we’re all weary of having to learn “how to” virtually everything. The primary goal of Learn to Earn was to help participants understand and be comfortable with asset allocation and be able to choose an asset allocation strategy that best suites them. Secondary goals were to drive program awareness, enrollments, and contribution increases. Learn to Earn ran from October 2021 – Jan. 31, 2022, taking visitors to a videogame-style environment to explore and play their way to better financial wellness. The full plan website, www.myDCplan.com, lies beneath the videogame “skin,” providing full functionality for real-world action. Nearly 22% of users with existing accounts increased their contributions, while more than 28% of users who were not previously plan participants enrolled, and 20% of users engaged with our retirement readiness tool.

The COVID-19 Recovery Outreach Dashboard is an interactive public dashboard that displays the regional outreach performed to hear from the community what COVID-19 related impacts could help guide recovery priorities. This regional outreach was centered around being able to understand from community members how local governments could best spend pandemic recovery funds and make the best decisions to strengthen the community and gather input from those in the community that are disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.