Client Challenge

Bloomberg Philanthropies periodically holds their Mayor’s Challenge, a competition for cities to win grant money toward solving their biggest challenges. The Challenge includes a training element, equalizing applicants from across the country. Bloomberg needed assistance training the cities to utilize a design thinking approach, equipping them to put forward innovative ideas for long term challenges in their city. That’s where we came in.

Our Solution

We trained 50 cities on using design thinking methods to identify problems and propose solutions to prototype. When 5 finalists were chosen to move on to the next round, Bloomberg and BCG came to North & Main to ask for support on coaching cities through the next phase of the challenge: the prototyping phase. We met with the cities to train several times a month for a period of 6 months.

our results

Because of the quality of our coaching, the cities were better prepared for solutions for their challenges and for the future. As the cities progressed through the challenge, Bloomberg wanted North & Main to continue coaching them into the next phase, equipping them with usable design thinking skills.