Mercy Corps is known globally for its agility and innovation in places in conflict, crisis and economic collapse. A project like the CIT fits in a domestic context for Mercy Corps’ global interest in localizing development, health, and wellness efforts. The CIT is the first nationwide project of the 43-year-old organization. The CIT was incubated by Mercy Corps Northwest (MCNW) by its executive director (who is now the executive director of the CIT) with advisory assistance from local and national experts, several university teams and the public finance firm, Orrick. MCNW had a nearly twenty-year history of innovation with national recognition in asset building models, criminal justice by working in the two state women’s prisons in Oregon and Washington teaching self-employment and life skills, running a large and pioneering felon-led reentry transition center for thousands of formerly incarcerated individuals in Oregon, and building refugee farming businesses.

We have received over 130 inquiries from cities nationally in the past two years and fifteen have completed or are engaged in feasibility studies. Our goal is to work in 100 cities in the next 10 years, building a community of practice for shared learning while maintaining our developed backbone components to replicators. See our Case Study for details on the design of the CIT and the services we offer to replicators.