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TO UNDERSTAND THE STORY OF ROHIT MALHOTRA MPP 2013, consider two crucial moments. The first takes place in college at a national dance competition, where Malhotra is the base of a seven-person tower for a bhangra number鈥攖he high-energy Indian folk dance known for its acrobatic moves. As he lifts the people stacked on top of him, his knees lock, his ankles roll, and he breaks both legs.

In the second, Malhotra鈥檚 parents are visiting from Atlanta for his graduation from the Kennedy School. 鈥淔or the first time, I saw them use the railing to climb some stairs,鈥 he says. 鈥淚 remember going back to my apartment that day and I cried. I realized my parents weren鈥檛 getting any younger, and that I wanted to be near them.鈥

Disconnected as these events may seem, both played a key role in the creation of Atlanta鈥檚 (CCI)鈥攁 nonprofit and social innovation and civic engagement hub Malhotra founded in 2014 to counter what he calls 鈥渢he tale of two cities.鈥

鈥淭here鈥檚 the Atlanta with a thriving business center and companies known all over the world,鈥 he says. 鈥淏ut it also has one of the highest income inequality gaps of any large city in the United States.鈥

Since its opening, CCI has created a community of thousands of Atlanta residents, in addition to raising and investing nearly   $2 million in almost 100 community leaders with solutions to improve the city鈥檚 outlook. It has launched a citywide voter engagement initiative to connect citizens with candidates for elected office in the Atlanta region. And it is leading an effort to reassess a decades-old system of neighborhood planning in the city. The organization has come to embody Malhotra鈥檚 spirit of iteration, outreach, and risk taking.

鈥淚 joke that we鈥檙e the city of Atlanta鈥檚 Department of Failure,鈥 Malhotra says. 鈥淚鈥檝e always wanted it to be a place where there was no red tape鈥攚here you can innovate for the public sector.鈥

Charged Up

Now about that bhangra accident, which happened in Malhotra鈥檚 second year at Emory University. Confined to a wheelchair for weeks, he happened to pick up The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs and Building Social Business by Muhammad Yunus. 鈥淚 came back from that injury charged up about poverty issues around the world,鈥 he says.

As an undergrad, Malhotra started a nonprofit that engaged other young people around the United Nations鈥 Millennium Development Goals, among them the elimination of malaria. He raised money by selling T-shirts with the message 鈥淢osquitos Suck鈥 and traveled to Mali, where his understanding of poverty was informed by the complexity and resilience he saw in the country鈥檚 villages and cities. 鈥淚t's not that I didn't know about poverty. I grew up in it, and my parents lived it in India,鈥 Malhotra says. 鈥淏ut that trip gave me context for it. It made me understand it. Poverty isn鈥檛 what you read about in textbooks. People are not data points鈥攖hey are wrapped up in culture and experiences that dictate the way they see the world and the way the world sees them.鈥 Malhotra believes that coming into a community from the outside and directing how it should be wasn鈥檛 as powerful as enabling citizens to create that change themselves.

Photo of participants at Atlanta鈥檚 Center for Civic Innovation (CCI)鈥攁 nonprofit and social innovation and civic engagement hub founded by Rohit Malhotra MPP 2013.

Out of college, Malhotra worked in marketing and digital outreach for Malaria No More and Bono鈥檚 One Campaign before landing a job developing a digital communications strategy for the Democratic National Committee, including content for @BarackObama, the president鈥檚 Twitter account. 鈥淚 learned that I loved the communication side, but I was always a little sad when the door closed and others worked on policy,鈥 he says. That realization led Malhotra to the Kennedy School, where he served as . 鈥淭he Kennedy School gave me a lexicon I would have never otherwise had,鈥 he says. 鈥淚 learned the work happening on the ground in my hometown of Atlanta was known to the rest of the world as social innovation. If you don鈥檛 put a name to something, it鈥檚 hard to value it, and that鈥檚 exactly what was happening in our city.鈥

As an , Malhotra worked in the White House Office of Management and Budget in the summer of 2012, focusing on social impact bonds as a financing mechanism for struggling cities. His instinct was to reach out directly to city leaders with the information and ideas being generated, but he soon realized that it wasn鈥檛 that easy. 鈥淲e were talking about nerdy stuff I loved, but it was hard to move that conversation beyond our bubble in Washington,鈥 he says. 鈥淚 knew the federal government was complex, but I think I didn't realize how much red tape was involved before dollars and opportunity could flow from the federal government to a city.鈥

When Malhotra moved back to Atlanta after graduating from the Kennedy School, he began organizing discussion groups for residents to better understand some of his hometown鈥檚 most pressing issues鈥攁mong them, food insecurity, transportation, income disparity, safety, and education. An opportunity to be a Presidential Innovation Fellow came his way; he turned it down to continue working with local leaders on what would become CCI.

On September 12, 2014, a diverse collection of more than 300 鈥渟tubborn, thoughtful, and driven鈥 residents of Atlanta came together in the pouring rain for CCI鈥檚 launch in its renovated space just steps away from city hall and the Georgia state capitol. That public show of support and interest was a powerful sign for Malhotra that people in Atlanta were ready to address widening inequality and low public participation in local government.

鈥淚鈥檝e always wanted it to be a place where there was no red tape鈥攚here you can innovate for the public sector.鈥
Rohit Malhotra

Fierce Guidance

At the heart of CCI鈥檚 mission is its collaboration with civic innovators鈥攁 term Malhotra defines as people on the ground who are challenging the status quo and building entrepreneurial solutions to address inequality. Malhotra and his teams have raised about $2 million from philanthropic and impact investors to directly invest in those grassroots leaders鈥 solutions. That has meant supporting Tiffany LaTrice Williams, who launched TILA Studios, which is focused on increasing representation of black female art in galleries and museums around the country, and John Kennebrew鈥檚 Showcase Group, which provides mental health services to teens in juvenile detention to substantially decrease recidivism rates.

鈥檚 organization, Grandmama鈥檚 House, was another investment. Trimble started it when she noticed something in her Oakland City (Atlanta) neighborhood: People she鈥檇 known for years were disappearing, driven to sell their homes to developers because of unpaid taxes or costly repairs.

鈥淚 saw my neighborhood changing,鈥 Trimble says of the city鈥檚 rising real estate market. 鈥淕od ain鈥檛 making no more dirt, and in certain parts of Atlanta it鈥檚 very valuable. It鈥檚 important for our community to understand what we have鈥攖o treasure it, and pass it on to the next generation.鈥

So Trimble created Grandmama鈥檚 House to provide workshops and individual sessions to guide eligible seniors through the process of applying for government funds for home repair.

Trimble learned about CCI when she served as a volunteer for its #VoteATL Initiative, where it focused on educating residents about the local elections and hosted Q&A sessions with all 12 mayoral candidates. Selected as a CCI Civic Innovation Fellow, Trimble received an initial investment of $5,000 to test her idea over a six-month period during which she had access to CCI鈥檚 resources, including office space, networking events and talks, and one-on-one strategic planning sessions. Because of that, Trimble was one of eight women to receive a follow-on investment of $25,000 through CCI鈥檚 partnership with Sara Blakely, the founder and CEO of Spanx. In 2016, Malhotra and Blakely teamed up to start an initiative to invest in women-led businesses creating social impact in Atlanta.

Tiffany LaTrice Williams (top); Charnette Trimble (bottom)
Tiffany LaTrice Williams (top); Charnette Trimble (bottom)

Trimble laughs and uses the word 鈥渇ierce鈥 when describing Malhotra鈥檚 guidance: 鈥淗e takes your plan and tears it down, rips it up, and gives it back to you,鈥 she says. 鈥淗e says, 鈥楳y job isn鈥檛 to make you good, my job is to make you excellent.鈥欌 CCI creates a strong community among the leaders it works with, but also challenges them to create models for their work that eventually 鈥減ut them out of business鈥 because they actually solve the problem. 

Beyond its work with individual leaders, CCI focuses on strengthening engagement between people and local government. In addition to #VoteATL, CCI launched its , an effort to educate residents on Atlanta鈥檚 official system of community engagement: Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs). Introduced in 1974 by Mayor Maynard Jackson, the first African American mayor of a major Southern city, NPUs were created to give Atlanta鈥檚 residents a voice on the issues that concern them most and became a model of civic engagement for other American cities. In the following decades, owing to declining support from city government, many residents saw that the system no longer worked as originally intended. Malhotra commends the leaders of Atlanta鈥檚 NPUs who, in spite of these challenges, still find ways to represent their neighborhoods鈥 unique voices. CCI is working with these leaders to evaluate and revitalize what has become an outdated process of reaching out to residents鈥攚ho, not surprisingly, did not feel heard. That process, Malhotra says, requires him to turn back to his organizer roots to attend neighborhood meetings and listen to people share their frustrations and aspirations.   

鈥淭hose meetings are never what I would describe as fun, but they are fundamental to how cities function,鈥 he says. 鈥淭he hypothesis is that a greater number of active voices will result in increased innovation in the public sector and increase public participation so they are not only seven or eight people in a room making decisions on behalf of tens of thousands鈥攖hat鈥檚 scary.鈥

CCI鈥檚 team, working out of a 10,000-square-foot space located in a renovated department store building in the city鈥檚 downtown, has now grown to 10. But in a sense, it is working to include the entire community.

鈥淲e need places where communities can test ideas that can have massive implications for the system,鈥 Malhotra says. That outlook will continue to drive Malhotra and CCI鈥檚 work in the years ahead鈥攂ecause, as his own story shows, big change can evolve from seemingly random events.

Photos by Steve Strother and courtesy of Center for Civic Innovation

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