Background and outlook

Where we started...

The Knowledge Exchange for Resilience is the visionary culmination of a series of initiatives by the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust to build resilience in Maricopa County.

In 2015, the Trust joined with the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) — alongside agencies, private and social profit organizations, and individuals — to create the Advancing Community Resilience Partnership. By tapping the strengths of existing relationships and fostering new collaborations, the partnership aimed to collectively address pressing issues and community needs — ultimately helping build Maricopa County’s community resilience.

The Trust and ISC convened a series of interviews, focus groups, and workshops on the topic of community resilience. The Trust wanted to learn firsthand from the community about regional efforts underway aimed at building resilience in our nonprofit community and social sectors.

More than 200 individuals representing arts and culture, social services, healthcare, education, philanthropy, the private sector, and local and state government shared their perspectives, ideas, and candor; the contributions from these various dialogues were the impetus for the report Building Community Resilience in Maricopa County.

“We believe that building community resilience is a journey rather than a destination; it is an ongoing discipline rather than a desired future state. Resilient communities periodically assess progress in addressing vulnerabilities and look to identify new ones as the world changes.”

— EXCERPT FROM “BUILDING

RESILIENCE IN MARICOPA COUNTY”

As we conclude Year 0 — and with it, our prototype phase — KER is looking ahead to how we can scale our impact to the rest of the university. As a boundary spanning organization, we are demonstrating how to build community infrastructure and break down silos between sectors. The graphic to the right illustrates how we aim to introduce this new design characteristic of the New American University and become a model for the nation.

“We believe that we’ve done a poor job in the past of being integrated in our thinking, thinking about the future, designing the future. We’ve just been discovering, discovering, discovering. We’ve got to move past that. What we really need to do is change our design logic.”

— MICHAEL M. CROW, PRESIDENT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY