Action Plan

Action Plan Overview

NYC Speaks worked with our partners in government and philanthropy to devise an initial set of commitments that directly respond to the five priority ‘action areas’ identified above – housing and public safety, youth mental health, community spaces, jobs in high-growth sectors, and civic engagement. These five areas emerged through a rigorous funneling process that sought to lift up ideas from inside and outside of government so as to identify opportunities for strategic action that are both responsive to need and implementable. 

Deputy Mayor Wright and her office are committed to coordinating internal and external partnerships to deliver on the initial set of actions below. This is where we’ll be focusing first; it is not the end state and these actions alone won’t get us all the way toward the ‘north star’ for what we hope our city may someday achieve. The initial commitments accompanying each north star represent actions that the City and its partners will undertake in the near-term to work towards each of these end goals, with more engagement, more commitments, and more actions being incorporated over time as the City embarks upon subsequent strategic planning efforts. 

Hear from Mayor Eric Adams & Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright.

One-Pagers

Use the Action Plan one-pagers for a high level summary of our North Stars. They are also available for download here: Action Plan One-Pagers Download.

How Can this Plan be Used?

1. To understand the policy issues and actions that New Yorkers are prioritizing (the findings from our extensive research process).
2. To understand how you can get involved in the initial action areas coordinated by the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Initiatives and community partners. 

North Stars

Where We Are Now & Progress to Come

NYC Speaks proves that democracy doesn’t stop at elections, nor is community engagement alone enough to achieve participatory decision-making. What’s required is an inside-outside game that brings rigor to the process by quantifying the mandate for how New Yorkers want their government to serve them, coupled with a facilitated process with the Mayor’s senior team and agency commissioners to discuss the feasibility of proposed actions, align and amplify existing City policies and programs, and work to ensure that the actions are fully integrated into the City’s administrative and performance measurement systems.  

NYC Speaks, in delivering an agenda of community-driven priorities translated into action, proves that people-driven policy shaping and policy making is possible, with the potential to transform the ways that New York City government works. In order to realize that potential, the DMSI Team will continue to convene senior leaders on an ongoing basis to further the commitments identified above and ensure that future commitments are working toward these North Stars. 

To support implementation of the initial commitments identified above along with future strategic actions, the City will work with the Mayor’s Fund and HR&A Advisors to establish the ‘NYC Speaks Action Fund’ to continue working with philanthropic partners to co-invest with the City on the initial commitments in the NYC Speaks Action Plan and future strategic actions. The fund will identify specific actions that can be made more innovative, impactful, and community-driven with philanthropic support and match private funders with those opportunities.  This will be part of a larger effort to redefine the partnership between philanthropy and local government towards co-governance and collaborative policymaking.