To enable 100 cities to better address major 21st century challenges, the Rockefeller Foundation is inviting cities from around the world to apply for the 100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge. The foundation, this year celebrating its 100th anniversary, is supporting this mandate conceptually and financially. The foundation supports work that expands opportunity and strengthens resilience to social, economic, health and environmental challenges. On May 14th, the Rockefeller Foundation announced a 100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge. They also plan to fund the hiring of 100 Chief Resiliency Officers, one for each winning city.

So what is “resiliency”? Resiliency is the ability to bounce back. It accounts for something that sustainability does not – the fact that bad things can and will inevitably happen. Communities need to prepare for these events, but they also need to prepare to bounce back and recover. A community’s ability to accomplish this is its resiliency. Sustainability, of course, is just as important – but in a different way. Sustainability focuses on a community’s way of functioning and existing rather than its ability to react and respond to harmful events, natural disasters and any other issues that may arise. Resiliency can help re-establish sustainability when it is lost.

The Rockefeller Foundation wants to create the new position of Resiliency Officer within these 100 cities, whose primary task would be to think on, plan on and act on establishing and building resilience within their city. A positive outcome of even just establishing this position would be to bring awareness to the rest of the local government about resiliency – saying, “Hey, this is important!” This is a great opportunity for both small and large municipalities to invest in their future and receive a unique support structure towards improving resiliency.

Each winning city will receive:

• Membership in the 100 Resilient Cities Network which will provide support to member cities and share new knowledge and resilience best practices.
• Support to hire a Chief Resilience Officer to oversee the development of a resilience strategy for the city and be part of a learning network of other CROs.
• Support to create a resilience plan, along with tools and resources for implementation.

Additional Resources:
For more information about the 100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge, please visit: http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/100-resilient-cities.

Funding opportunities and application information will be available shortly.