Institute Intelligence, February 2025: Impact of Community Investments, Q&A with a NYC Council Deputy Chief of Staff
By Carla Sinclair, Senior Communications Associate
Welcome to the February edition of Institute Intelligence. Even though it’s the shortest month of the year, we covered a lot of ground over here at ISLG—it’s included kicking off new data-driven collaborations, convening elected officials and their staff from across New York City and State, and synthesizing a decade’s worth of research on the impact of community investments. Read more about our recent publications, conversations, and partnerships below.
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Optimizing Governments & Institutions
A Q&A with NYC City Council Deputy Chief of Staff Brandon Jordan
Whether they’re drafting legislation, tackling policy issues, or out listening to their communities, the chiefs of staff and other legislative office leaders of New York City and State elected officials play a vital role. With responsibilities as diverse as the array of public policy issues they delve into, these staff need to be policy experts, budget wonks, effective managers, and much more.
CUNY ISLG established the Kriegel Fellowship for Public Service Leaders in 2020 as a professional development and peer-to-peer learning opportunity for legislative chiefs of staff. The Fellowship has expanded to help all legislative office leaders gain insight into the pressures that influence policy decision-making, enhance their policy knowledge and leadership capacities, and collaborate with peers to more positively impact the future of New York City and State.
We recently sat down with Kriegel Fellow Brandon Jordan, who works as the Deputy Chief of Staff for New York City Council Member Julie Menin, to talk about it all. Read it here.
“I really want people to know that staff in legislative offices are very, very critical. They're the spine of the office.
They're there to give their constituents support, especially when the world seems on fire.
These are the people that have a hose to help put out those fires—sometimes, they may be the smallest of fires, but they're putting out a fire.”
- Brandon Jordan, Kriegel Fellow & Deputy Chief of Staff to NYC Council Member Julie Menin
Analyzing data and hearing from businesses to learn about equity, challenges, and opportunities in City contracting.
We’ve partnered with the the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS) to conduct a Disparity Study examining equity in procurement and contracting by City agencies.
As part of the study, CUNY ISLG is reaching out to business owners to learn more about their businesses, barriers they have faced in doing business or attempting to do business with the City, how processes can be improved to further the City’s goals for fairness and equity
All businesses can make their voices heard by responding to our brief Business Experience Survey, available in English, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Bengali, Korean, Arabic, and Yiddish. This is your chance to tell the City what is and isn’t working in its contracting process, and what would help your business succeed.
The survey is open to all business owners and decision-makers and is expected to take roughly 10 minutes of your time. In exchange for completing the survey, you will be entered into a raffle to win one of 15 $200 gift cards.
Learn more about the project here.
Promoting Opportunity
Synthesizing a Decade of CJII Innovation
With strategic investments in supportive and preventative community services, the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII) has successfully supported over 50 innovative programs serving more than 34,000 people across New York City.
Reflecting on the past decade of work from the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII), four new briefs synthesize what we learned about the key drivers of implementation and impact, and provide a blueprint for practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and funders to shape the future of public safety partnerships.
Strengthening Cross-System Collaboration for Greater Impact
In the first brief, we focus on how service providers broke down organizational siloes and cut across systemic barriers to enhance coordination and improve the delivery of key education, physical and mental health, employment, and other services.
Addressing Trauma to Promote Healing and Mental Well-Being
In the second brief, we describe how providers supported healing among youth and young adults; survivors of crime; justice system-involved individuals; and other groups who have been exposed to violence or otherwise experienced trauma.
Read more.
Understanding, Reaching & Engaging Excluded Populations
The third brief discusses how providers designed tailored strategies to reach individuals and communities who have been systematically excluded from public services, and who face a heightened risk of being victims and/or interacting with the criminal legal system.
Read more.
Meeting Needs and Creating Opportunities for Individuals Involved in the Criminal Legal System
The final brief explores how providers designed services to support individuals reintegrating into the community following detention or incarceration, connecting them with opportunities and reducing the likelihood of further contact with the criminal legal system.
Read more.
On our Blog: Everyone has a different journey to healing from trauma. In East Harlem, one program is tapping into an array of services and trauma-informed approaches to give its participants the tools to both heal from past trauma and face new challenges safely. See what some of them had to say about their experiences on our latest blog post from Research Associate Brandon Martinez.
“Saying if you need that help, come get that help. Come get it from me. Come get it from us.”
- Ashley, CTI Participant
Advancing Justice
Calling State and Local Prosecutors: Partner with Us to Enhance Your Policies, Practices, and Outcomes with Data
Bringing together a team of data scientists, researchers, and practitioners, the Prosecutorial Data Collaborative supports state and local prosecutor’s offices in building the infrastructure and culture necessary to not only effectively use data in their offices, courtrooms, and communities to support decision-making and policy, but to enable compliance with broader statutory requirements that may impact the work of prosecutors, e.g., legislative changes to data and reporting.
The Collaborative also facilitates the unique opportunity to match each participating office with a local research or academic partner or fellow that can provide ongoing data and analytic support, helping sustain changes over time. Offices also have access to a network of peers.
Through existing funding, we are able to offer offices two years of hands-on assistance from our team—participating offices are not required to financially contribute toward any of the services that are provided. If this type of no-cost partnership would be of interest to your state or local prosecutor’s office, please let our team know!
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