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From Minds to Mountains:
Building a Brighter Future Together
Initiative: Vitalizing Communities
OVERVIEW
Vitalizing Communities is a Master Initiative that provides a framework for a decade of dedicated innovative initiatives focused on creating communities that are thriving economically, culturally, socially, and environmentally.
OBJECTIVES
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Foster collective intelligence: Create a collaborative platform and process bringing together community members, local government, students, scientists, innovators, business leaders, and policymakers to share ideas and expertise with the goals of their communities, towns, cities and counties.
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Spark annual innovation: Drive the development of one impactful, locally-driven initiative each year to solve a pressing challenge and advance the community's well-being while fostering and respecting its cultural diversity.
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Empower community ownership: Ensure residents participate meaningfully in shaping the future of community through their ideas and active engagement in chosen initiatives.​
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Strengthen CAIDI's impact: Provide CAIDI Institute with a robust pipeline of initiatives for potential implementation, furthering its mission to serve the community and vitalize it for the benefit of the local residents and businesses.
​IMPLEMENTATION
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Themed annual think tanks: Rotate the focus of each "Think Tank Summit" to address a specific challenge area (e.g., housing in year 1, economic development in year 2, etc).
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Invite the Brightest Minds: Using the CAIDI Innovation Network, ensure that the brightest people from a cross section of sectors including scientists, innovators, business leaders, academics, and policymakers will participate in the think tank and solutions. Additionally, expertise in the designated challenge area for each year will be engaged.
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Invite Community and Local Government Participation: Ensure that residence and local government representatives are key participants in initiative selection and think tank solutions.
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Initiative Creation and Funding: The selected idea will be incubated for 6 months similar to all CAIDI initiatives.The funding for the selected idea will be led by CAIDI Starts. If needed to be funded through private equity, it will be presented to the CAIDI Funding Network. If funding needs to come philanthropically, it will be presented to the CAIDI Philanthropic Network for funding.
Does your community need vitilazation?
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Let us know what community challenge you want us to solve for in 2026.
2026
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