The City of New Orleans VISTA program is implemented by the Office of Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Initiatives. The City is seeking passionate individuals to build capacity to break the cycle of poverty and empower our community. Project Why is designed to address obstacles and challenges to implementing policy priorities due to a deep mistrust of government and lack of meaningful feedback loop between the City and our residents. It is an iterative design process that engages heavily with stakeholders to collect observations, data, and other important revelations about individual’s lived experiences and perspectives, in order to design, test and improve interactions with residents in a way that is trauma-informed, collaborative, inclusive, and equitable.
As the VISTA Project Why Program Coordinator, you will work with the project’s VISTA Visual Design member to identify points of frustration where residents feel the City lacks “common sense” and does not effectively explain what is happening and why. The project will establish both the process of seeking and incorporating feedback, as well as prototyping and improving specific interventions, policies, protocols, design standards, and impact metrics that will inform the City’s engagement with residents long-term.
This project will support the City’s efforts to strengthen our community and engage with every resident, with an awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion, by removing the institutionalized barriers that disproportionately impact the ability of certain populations to engage with government. Your involvement in this program will serve to move New Orleans forward in fundamentally transforming how government understands and responds to the needs of our residents and businesses.
Service Activities
Throughout one year of service, the VISTA member will work with the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Initiatives to:
-Establish the Project Why initiative, learn and teach iterative design, and establish the process, timeline, and protocols for understanding the problem, ideations, and prototyping cycles.
-Work with City staff to identify circumstances that are chokepoints, bottlenecks, frustrations for residents when interacting with government, or other conditions that undermine the City’s competence.
-Work with departments and agencies to develop explanations that are available to people when they want them, on topics they want to know about, in ways they can understand.
-Develop physical (or digital) explanations available to residents when, where, and why they need explaining.
-Prototype and deploy solutions and monitor/measure impact.
Community Need Addressed
The CNO VISTA Program supports City Hall by implementing sustainable capacity building projects to increase the effectiveness of each department.
Position Outcomes
Our VISTA members help the City strengthen existing services and provide more services for underserved and disproportionately impacted communities.
Benefits
Childcare assistance if eligible, Education award upon successful completion of service, Health coverage, Living allowance, Non-competitive eligibility (federal jobs), Relocation allowance (if applicable), Student loan forbearance
Education Benefits
College Degree
N/A
Skills you will gain
Professional Development
Competencies You Will Develop
Communication
Listen to and consider others' viewpoints, Maintain open lines of communication with others, Write cleary and effectively
Creativity & Problem Solving
Communicate the problem to appropriate personnel, Provide relevant expertise, Select and implement well-considered solution
Teamwork
Develop constructive working relationships and maintain them over time, Interact professionally and respectfully with supervisors and co-workers, Use appropriate strategies and solutions for dealing with conflicts and differences to maintain a smooth workflow
Decisions
Identify and prioritize the key issues involved to facilitate the decision making process, Involve people appropriately in decisions that may impact them
Tools
Carefully consider which tools or technological solutions are appropriate for a given job, Seek opportunities to improve knowledge of tools and technologies that may assist in streamlining work and improving productivity
Planning
Able to prioritize various competing tasks, Create plan of action, schedule tasks so that work is completed on time, Demonstrate the effective allocation of time and resources efficiently, Set goals
Service
Be pleasant, courteous, professional and respectful when dealing with internal and external customers or clients, Honor the privilege of being able to work with and for those being served, Understand the importance of one's role in the functioning of the organization