How We Work
Our experts collaborate with leaders across jurisdictions and at all levels of government to ensure effective policy solutions for local implementation and national scale.
From enabling a safe in-person learning environment for all children to forging a more fair and responsive justice system to providing good jobs in a post-covid economy, the Justice, Health & Democracy Impact Initiative (JHD) develops policy solutions that both scale nationally and meet needs locally.
What’s more, the model uniquely recognizes that successful policy today must account for the intersection of justice, health, and democracy as central to a thriving society.
Through the Justice, Health & Democracy Impact Initiative, experts work directly with local leaders
on practical approaches to the most challenging issues facing society.
It starts with a Strategic Impact Idea.
Too often, policy-making is disconnected from the very communities it is meant to serve, which is why JHD is about facilitating – not dictating – effective solutions. Our goal is to turn a societal problem into a Strategic Impact Idea where the JHD research community and our extensive network can lend its weight to affected communities in turning the levers of change. By rolling up our sleeves and connecting our expertise and resources to local needs and realities, we assist local leaders in building integrated and effective policy frameworks that can advance human flourishing on a wide scale.
And then we get to work.
Our experts work with leader practitioners to understand the challenge people are facing on a policy issue from multiple levels of governance: local, state, and national. Experts then incorporate the needs of practitioners and people into policy research. We stress test policy approaches with practitioners to ensure the policy solution: 1) is coordinated across jurisdictions; and 2) addresses needs at the local, state, and national levels.
We then work with partners at all levels to disseminate the policy approach broadly. We follow up with community leaders to understand how the policy is being implemented on the ground, what is working, what needs further refinement, and how leader practitioners are innovating the policy to meet the needs of their communities. Leader practitioner experiences, learnings, and feedback are then incorporated into our research to refine the policy solution, which is then shared with national level policy makers and associations.
