Following the recent launch of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge 2025, the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) began its support to potential applicants by holding two information webinars on Monday, 28 October. Both sessions were well attended but, for those cities who were unable to take part, we are happy to take you through the main information points and some of the key questions raised in this article.

CLGF and sustainable urbanisation

Led by Claire Frost, CLGF’s Head of Programmes and Janine Xavier-Cross, Senior Programme Officer - Networks, the sessions kicked off by explaining CLGF and the work of our network, bringing together ministries of local government, associations and councils across the 56 countries of the Commonwealth. The Mayors Challenge aligns closely CLGF priority work on sustainable development and rapid urbanisation and our collaboration as part of the Commonwealth Sustainable Cities Initiative (CSCI).

This work is aligned to CLGF’s commitment to its city members and the work of its Commonwealth Sustainable Cities Network (CSCN), established in 2015 as a mechanism to bring together mayors and city managers across the Commonwealth to support cities, as well as human settlements, in their response to the challenges and opportunities.

Bloomberg Philanthropies supporting Cities

This is the second time CLGF has worked with Bloomberg Philanthropies on the Mayors Challenge both promoting the initiative and providing support to our members in their application process. In 2022, five of the 15 final winners were from the Commonwealth and the 2025 Challenge provides even more opportunity. Bloomberg Philanthropies has been investing in over 700 cities in 150 countries across a wide range of thematic areas, including arts education, environment, government innovation, public health as well as specific urban investment projects. The Mayors Challenge has now been run by Bloomberg five times and so far there been over 1660 applicants and 38 winners with $56,000,000 invested in cities across the world.

Reimaging core city services

The 2025 Challenge is about reimagining core city services that have an impact on residents’ lives. It will see 50 finalist cities receiving $50,000 and coaching to support the testing of some of the key ideas and piloting of projects.

From these finalists, 25 winning cities will receive an additional $1 million to roll out the project across the city. In addition to the funding, world class technical support will be provided to support cities to refine and implement their innovation.

All cities with populations of +100,000 are eligible, and application must address core city services. These services must be citywide and under the direct authority of the city. This can include public transportation, education, safety, libraries, parks and recreational spaces, healthcare, social services, internet connectivity, digital access, housing shelter clean water air and infrastructure maybe waste management and sanitation economic development or energy. But whatever the area of action, it must be the responsibility of the city.

Concept submission phase – Open until 20 December, 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time.

What to include

Each applications needs to include four elements:

• Description of the problem you are looking to address
• Your bold and innovative idea
• The Mayor’s commitment to the proposal
• Stakeholder information

Each element of the submission is crucial to show how your proposal is novel, impactful and doable. Use as much data as possible, both quantitative and qualitative data, for example, stakeholder interviews, travel patterns, usage statistics, evidence-based information. When explaining how you will address the issue, demonstrate how you have brought together a multi sectoral team within your administration to brainstorm and plan, and consider what staff positions will be needed to implement a winning proposal. Demonstrate stakeholder involvement and experiences, and explain how the project will impact and benefit stakeholders.

Importance of leadership

Leadership is also key to a winning proposal. The mayor must demonstrate a clear commitment to the proposal though the submission of a commitment video. Submitting a strong video is important. Strong in terms of content and messaging, not in production, a smart phone video is sufficient.

Finally the proposal should consider what skills and perspectives are needed to successfully implement the initiative; who will be part of your team; what stakeholders do you need within the city administration and outside; how will you mobilise these people; how will you bring collaborators into the process; what kind of advisers might you need to ensure best practice and innovation.

Tools to support the application process

Bloomberg provides a number of tools to help in the development of your ideas; worksheets, activity sheets, facilitation guidelines for stakeholder group. There's a whole toolkit for innovators to help with the preparation.

Office hours sessions

There is a series of live Q&A session - Office Hours – as well as webinars which will look thematic areas such as framing your problem; collecting data; and brainstorming for innovation. The sessions are spread across November and December with the full calendar available here.

FAQs

A full set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) can also be found on the link above and CLGF is available through the info@clgf.org.uk for any questions you may have with regard to your application.