Competition Details
Questions? Email thechallenge@sas.upenn.edu
Schedule
The Public Policy Challenge started in the fall with the application process, sponsorship outreach, and participant selection. The competition really kicked off in early December with a team-building meet-and-greet event held at City Tap House, where speakers included President of Campus Philly, Deborah Diamond; Board Chair of Young Involved Philadelphia Claire Robertson-Kraft; and Philadelphia City Councilman Bill Green.
Workshops took place on January 31st, February 7th, and March 14th at the Golkin Room in Houston Hall. On February 21st, a Round Robin judging event was held in various conference rooms at Penn’s David Rittenhouse Laboratory building where 5 of 10 teams advanced to the second round of the competition. You can read about the finalists and their projects here. Nearly 30 local policy experts and civic leaders served as Round Robin judges, providing their insight and asking tough questions.
After Workshop #3 on March 14th, the Challenge Finals will take place on Sunday, March 20th at the Kirby Auditorium at the National Constitution Center. Stay tuned to find out who are judges are this year! For a complete list of last year’s judges, click here.
Of course, you can always check the calendar for specific info about Deadlines & Events.
Application and Team Formation
One of the goals of the Challenge is to bring together students from different disciplines who have common policy interests – team dynamics and networking with new colleagues are part of the overall Challenge experience. To that end, participants apply individually, rather than as predetermined teams. (Follow this link to Get Involved and complete the simple application [note: the application is currently closed, but will re-open during the Fall 2011 semester].)
Using information from applications, an advisory panel of faculty and students select a limited number of participants and assign them to teams of 5 (though teams can vary from 3 to 6 members apiece). Each team is made up of students from a variety of disciplines with common policy interests.
Events
Check the calendar for the latest info on event dates, times, and locations.
Kick-off / Team Building
An official kick-off event took place on the evening of December 7th, 201o at City Tap House, located across the street from the Fels Institute of Government. Three speakers (see above) came to address this year’s 51 participants, exploring topics like why it’s important for the university community to get involved with efforts to find answers to Greater Philadelphia’s biggest challenges and what the hot issue areas are today.
Workshop #1
The first workshop gives teams a basic overview of the civic campaign concept and helps them to understand the initial steps of a campaign. These are the things that policy entrepreneurs might do before introducing a proposal to formal political processes: getting the policy research together, identifying lines of influence and key stakeholders, marketing their initiative to the public and building a coalition of support. Teams are asked to bring a rough draft (executive summary-type) policy proposal, which they complete in the 2 weeks between the kick-off and the workshop. Part of the workshop time is set aside for the teams to actually work on these initial plan components, getting individualized feedback from workshop leaders.
Speakers this year included Dave Langlieb, MGA ‘09, who currently works for PIDC. Dave discussed a series of case histories he put together for Fels in 2009 and 2010 which explored how various major projects – like the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the redevelopment of Society Hill, and the launching of the Center City District – were accomplished in Greater Philadelphia. Janine White, Executive Editor of Philadelphia Magazine, also addressed the teams; she discussed a recent piece she put together for the magazine called “The Best Damn City in America: 20 Ways it Could Be Us”. Both Dave and Janine answered questions, and teams were given time during the workshop to work on their projects.
Workshop #2
The 2nd workshop focuses on the legislative “inside game”: drafting legislation, lobbying and navigating formal political processes. Again, part of the time is set aside for the teams to actually work on these initial plan components, getting individualized feedback from workshop leaders.
This year’s facilitators included John Hawkins, a lobbyist with S.R. Wojdak & Associates (one of this year’s sponsors) who worked with teams on how to effectively communicate ideas to policymakers, and Dr. Robert Pearson, a Senior Fellow at the Fels Institute of Government, who guided teams through a structured activity aimed at helping them understand the key components of an effective policy proposal and campaign.
Round Robin
The Round Robin is a preliminary judging event and an opportunity for teams to test out their ideas on real regional actors. Each team gives several preliminary pitches, in private, to different panels of stakeholders from the Philadelphia region who are working in different sectors on various policy issues. We ask these stakeholders to have a little fun with it – they may be brutally honest – but this is a good way for teams to practice building those coalitions of support. It is also a good warm-up for the finals. Based on feedback from the panelists, 5 teams advance to the 2nd phase of the competition (Workshop #2 and Finals).
This event took place on February 21st at the David Rittenhouse Laboratory building at Penn, and 28 local and regional policy leaders served on our four judging panels.
Workshop #3
The 3rd workshop will give the 5 teams that advanced to round 2 of the competition an opportunity to learn more about what makes an effective presentation, and to work with Fels staff on answering lingering questions they might have about what to expect during the Finals.
The event takes place on March 14th in the Golkin Room at Houston Hall, where Eric Weinberg, COO of Guggenheim Venture Partners, and Rob Nixon, Founder and President of State House Strategies (both teach a course on lobbying at Fels) will work one-on-one with teams as they prepare to deliver their final presentations to our distinguished panel of Finals judges on March 20th.
Finals
The Finals event is an opportunity for each of the final 5 teams to fully present its plan to a panel of judges. Presentations are followed by a short break and a reception, at which the winning team is announced. Check the calendar for the latest info on event dates, times, and locations.
This year’s Public Policy Challenge Finals will be held on Sunday, March 20th from 1 – 5 p.m. at the National Constitution Center’s Kirby Auditorium. A reception will be held at the Fels Mansion at 3814 Walnut Street following announcement of the winning team.
Judges
Judges include elected leaders, other regional policy actors and experts from the Penn community.
Confirmed judges for 2011 include:
Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley; John DiIulio, Professor and Director of the Fox Leadership Program at Penn; City Councilwoman Marion Tasco; Jeffrey Cooper, VP of Government and Community Affairs at Penn; Donna Cooper, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and former Pennsylvania Secretary for Planning and Policy; David Eisner, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center and former CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service; Helen Gym, Board Chair, Asian Americans United; Pennsylvania State Rep. Chris Ross; Pennsylvania State Rep. Dwight Evans
Prizes
The winning team in 2010 received $2,500 in charitable funds to donate to an organization of its choice AND $2,500 in individual scholarship funding to be divided at the team’s discretion. In addition, the winning team’s plan was published and widely distributed as an official Penn report. As part of the team’s prize, Fels sends their plan to a network of media outlets, public leaders, Penn alumni and other supporters in over 50 markets across the country, highlighting the winning team’s work as a model of interdisciplinary cooperation and policy innovation. All 5 final plans are published on the Challenge web page. Fundraising efforts for the 2010-2011 competition prize package are currently underway.
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