We believe we can increase the ability of our cities to solve social problems by creating more dynamic relationships between social sector innovators, citizens, service delivery organizations, and local governments. By helping leaders in cities to build systems that enable resources to be directed toward the most promising innovations, we can bring powerful solutions to bear for communities in need.

Urban Assets Initiative
Over the past two years, we have extensively explored the challenges and opportunities in the complex relationship between social entrepreneurs and cities. This work drew from:

• New Profit's experience in scaling social sector solutions for more than a decade
• Mayor Stephen Goldsmith and the Harvard Kennedy School's research into the relationships between cross-sector leaders in cities
• New Profit's exploration in cities of the barriers to and opportunities for harnessing innovation to solve urban social problems

Through our Urban Assets Initiative, we will apply our learnings to create an emergent model for uniting citizens, innovators, and city leaders to identify and grow solutions to urgent social problems. Urban Assets goals are to:

• Help cities learn about innovation opportunities and access the resources to leverage the power of transformative social innovations
• Catalyze the creation of dynamic local systems that will grow effective solutions on an ongoing basis
• Contribute to the development of a working market for social innovation that aligns resources around high-performing organizations

We aspire to spark demand and open up the supply of proven, high-impact solutions at the local level. This approach will offer citizens, government, philanthropy, business, and other community leaders the tools and resources necessary to foster and scale ongoing innovation.