Results for America

06/02/2026

Violent crime dropped 77% while 3rd-grade reading scores jumped 40 percentage points. How?

DREAM ON traveled to Spartanburg, South Carolina (the 3rd-fastest growing metro area in the U.S.) to visit the Northside neighborhood.

Here, a unique coalition of government officials, school district leaders, and local residents stopped looking at neighborhood development through a traditional lens. Instead, they used advanced manufacturing principles — including kaizen, a Japanese philosophy popularized by Toyota — to support resident leaders and guide one of the most inspiring neighborhood transformations in America.

Beyond crime reduction and reading scores, the teamwork in Spartanburg also built hundreds of units of new housing, a brand-new community center, a state-of-the-art child development center.

Spartanburg and its Northside are providing a national model for how discipline, resident leadership, and a community coming together can completely rewrite a neighborhood's future.

🎥 Watch the episode here! 👇🏽

Violent crime dropped 77% while 3rd-grade reading scores jumped 40 ...

06/01/2026

Join Results for America’s Jen Tolentino tomorrow at 3pm EST for a webinar hosted by the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities - LEO - at Notre Dame and J-PAL North America to explore how local government leaders are embedding research, data, and evidence into budgeting processes. There’s still time to reserve your spot!

🔗 RSVP here: https://forms.gle/jjni9W4WtkftkctB6

An Evidence Matters Webinar Many local governments have taken steps to evaluate the community impacts of specific programs and have used such analysis to support funding decisions. But how do we move from making ad hoc decisions about what gets evaluated to building a consistent focus on data and ev...

05/29/2026

As partners of The EdRedesign Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, we’re excited to invite you to a powerful virtual event: the premiere of DREAM ON’s new episode on the transformation of Spartanburg, SC’s Northside neighborhood.

In this episode, you’ll see how a cross-sector coalition of residents, local government, school district leaders, and a backbone organization came together to:

➤ Cut violent crime by 77%
➤ Raise 3rd-grade reading proficiency from 6% to 48%
➤ Build hundreds of units of new housing
➤ Open a new community center
➤ Create a state-of-the-art early learning center

📅 Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2026
🕛 Time: 10:00–11:00 AM ET
💻 Location: Virtual | Zoom Webinar

At this special launch event, you’ll be among the first to watch the episode and hear directly from the leaders behind this work during a live Q&A moderated by Rob Watson (Executive Director, EdRedesign) with:

➤ Jennifer Blatz, President & CEO, StriveTogether
➤ Dr. Russell Booker, CEO, Spartanburg Academic Movement
➤ Carol Naughton, CEO, Purpose Built Communities
➤ David Summers, CEO, Spartanburg Northside Development Group

This event is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required.

👉 Register here: https://edredesign.org/events/dream-spartanburg-sc

Please share this with your networks and join us to explore what’s possible when communities come together to rewrite a neighborhood story.

The EdRedesign Lab serves as a catalyst advancing the cradle-to-career field by promoting cross-sector community-based systems of support and opportunity for all children, especially those affected by racism and poverty.

05/26/2026

📢 On June 2, join the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities - LEO - at Notre Dame and Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) (North America) for the next virtual session in their Evidence Matters Webinar series! The webinar will explore how local government leaders are embedding research, data, and evidence into budgeting processes. You’ll hear practical advice from local government leaders about how to get started and how to sustain momentum over time—building the internal capacity, cross-departmental partnerships, and political will needed to make evidence-informed budgeting a lasting part of how your government works.

Event Details:
🗓️ Date: June 2, 2026
⏱️ Time: 12pm PST / 3pm EST
👩🏾‍💻 Register here: https://forms.gle/jjni9W4WtkftkctB6

Featured speakers include:
Ricardo Basurto-Davila, Chief Evaluation Officer, County of San Diego - Government, CA
Ryan Flynn, Civic Design Researcher, The Lab @ DC
Jen Tolentino, Director, Local Practice, Results for America
Sam Quinney, Director, Yale for Connecticut Initiative, Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy

05/22/2026

In our latest story from The Department of What Works, Maycomb Capital’s Caroline Herriman and Shelby Kohn join Jeff Kositsky, Deputy Director of Housing Stability and Homelessness Resolution for the City and County of Denver Government, as guest writers to share how Denver is tying homeless shelter payments to performance, reducing administrative burden, improving data and helping shelter providers focus on moving people toward housing.

🔗Read the story today:
https://thedepartmentofwhatworks.substack.com/p/from-receipts-to-results-denver-redesigns

By tying payments to performance, the city is reducing administrative burden, improving data and helping shelter providers focus on moving people toward housing.

05/19/2026

In this week’s post in The Department of What Works, Ricardo Basurto-Davila, County of San Diego - Government’s Chief Evaluation Officer, shares how the county created an independent evaluation office to help answer key questions – like “are we investing in the right things, at the right scale, for the right populations?”

📰 Read the full story to learn more: https://thedepartmentofwhatworks.substack.com/p/how-san-diego-county-is-making-sure

05/15/2026

“Counties and cities across the country are being asked to do more with less, and to show the impact of their work. The answer to that challenge is not more reporting. It is building the institutional capacity to ask whether our investments are working, and making sure the answer gets to people who can act on it,” writes Ricardo Basurto-Davila, Chief Evaluation Officer for the County of San Diego - Government in our latest post from the Department of What Works.

🔍 Learn how San Diego’s independent evaluation office is connecting rigorous evaluation to the policy and budget decisions that shape the lives of 3.3 million San Diegans.



Read the full story today! ⬇️

An independent evaluation office is connecting rigorous evaluation to the policy and budget decisions that shape the lives of 3.3 million San Diegans.

05/11/2026

"We've always done it this way" is our least favorite sentence. 🙅‍♂️

If you’re a state leader who dreams of a world where school district budgets are driven by evidence rather than inertia, this webinar is for you.

On May 19 at 1 p.m. ET, we’re gathering state education leaders to brainstorm how to move from "compliance-first" to "outcomes-first." We’ll be doing a "Friction Audit" to find out what's stopping LEAs from being strategic and how states can help clear the deck.

Come for the insights, stay for the chance to finally stop "rolling over" the same budget and start moving the needle for kids.

🔗https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/kOIsenr0TA-xzK016J8ANg

05/08/2026

Did you know that What Works Cities now has a new Instagram page?

Follow their new page to learn how a growing community of over 100 cities across the Americas is using data to better deliver services and solve problems for residents!

Follow them here: 👉 https://www.instagram.com/whatworkscitiescertification/

05/07/2026

“At the City of Long Beach, we are clear-eyed about both AI’s promise and its risks,” says Małgosia Rejniak, the Program Manager of AI and Data Governance for Long Beach City. “Move too quickly, and we risk data privacy concerns, fragmented one-off projects, and eroding public confidence. Move too slowly, and we miss opportunities to improve services and outcomes.”

In our latest Substack post from The Department of What Works, Rejniak shares the City of Long Beach’s journey to make engagement and transparency the starting point for using AI to improve services and build public trust.

📰 Read the new story here:
https://thedepartmentofwhatworks.substack.com/p/building-trust-first-how-long-beach