Steven Bosacker

Steven Bosacker

Steven Bosacker joined Living Cities in February 2015 as the Director of Public Sector Innovation. Steven most recently served as the City Coordinator for the City of Minneapolis where he championed accountability and transparency in services across municipal government. He was instrumental in advancing public-private cooperation including the development of the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District and oversaw the implementation of Minneapolis 311. Steven also created Results Minneapolis, a comprehensive management system that drove and tracked progress on the City’s long-term goals.

Steven began his public service career in the office of U.S. Congressman Tim Penny as a legislative assistant. Eventually rising to the position of Chief of Staff, Steven also served as a senior political and policy advisor for the congressman. After leaving Rep. Penny, Steven spent four years as the Executive Director and Corporate Secretary for the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents. In this position he supported the Board of Regents in all matters pertaining to the effective governance of the University of Minnesota including leading a presidential transition for the university in 1998. He left the U of M to lead Governor Jesse Ventura’s transition team and ultimately served as Chief of Staff for the governor where he authored and managed The Big Plan, a comprehensive strategic agenda for the State. Steven then spent nearly two years as a private consultant, facilitating and incubating new international business connections between the Baltic Sea region of Europe and the Midwestern United States. Steven is just back from a one-year personal journey around the world that took him to 23 countries and included business visits to India’s Prime Minister Office to discuss accountability systems in government and a similar discussion with the newly-elected Governor of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany.

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Contributing Articles

Data-Driven: The People Behind the Numbers

In his penultimate post on the Equipt to Innovate framework elements, Steven Bosacker urges government employees and those working in data to take time to consider the people and real-life impacts behind the data.

Employee-Engaged: No City Employee Left Behind

Our own Steven Bosacker and Gallup’s Justin M. Bibb come together to discuss the effects of a disengaged workforce and how to make every city employee a key contributor to municipal success.

Dynamically Planned: Make Only Big Plans, the Sequel

In his latest writing on the Equipt to Innovate framework, Steven Bosacker takes inspiration from architect Daniel Burnham, plus the work of cities like New Orleans and Louisville, to discuss how urban areas can tackle their biggest issues by making appropriately big plans.

Race-Informed: From Intent to Actions in Government

The latest post on Living Cities’ Equipt to Innovate framework addresses racial inequities and how the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, specifically, is embracing new approaches to tackle the problem.

Resident-Involved: The Parliamentarian from Estonia

In the second of a seven-part series on Living Cities’ Equipt to Innovate™ framework, Steven Bosacker discusses engaging residents—the “deliciously messy part of governing.”

Broadly Partnered: Tapping the Whole Community on the Tough Stuff

In the first of a seven-part series on Living Cities’ Equipt to Innovate™ framework, Steven Bosacker shows how Richmond, VA, is tapping the collective intelligence of its city to address one of the toughest of social ills: poverty.

Video: How to Use Data to Drive Results

Using data is a huge part of driving collaborative change. Without access to robust data related to strategies, it is hard to keep partners aligned on the overall goal of the collaborative, as well as track progress towards that goal. Yet, good data is hard to find. To learn more about this challenge, we brought together a set of experts …

Realizing the Innovation Dividend

What makes a high-performing city government? To help answer this question, we partnered with Governing to create the Equipt to Innovate framework. “Innovation” is surely one of this decade’s defining buzzwords, and quite possibly one that risks being discarded due to overuse or abuse. Think “paradigm shift,” “reengineering,” “IT transformation,” or “bottom-up budgeting” for the nineties; or “globalization” and its …

Innovating in World Megacities: A Search for Stories

Living Cities and the National Democratic Institute are launching a new partnership to find and tell stories of civic innovation in selected megacities around the world. Every 20 years, the United Nations gathers to discuss the work of cities and renew political commitment to sustainable urbanization. In this year of the third Habitat conference, there is a vibrant global conversation happening …

Introducing the City Accelerator’s Third Cohort

They want to fortify, scale and sustain. From seawalls to stairs, streetlights to stormwater, Pittsburgh, Saint Paul, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are setting ambitious targets as they join the City Accelerator’s Infrastructure Finance cohort. In December 2015, the Citi Foundation and Living Cities invited approximately 40 of the nation’s largest cities for an opportunity to explore a new set …

Contributing Resources

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