Designing how we
Build It Back Better,
together

In 2020, a series of overlapping crises hit — COVID-19, racial injustice, climate change, economic disruption — exposing the fragility and deficiencies in our current systems. For everyone, it was a deeply challenging year. Leaders had a lot on their plate – they struggled to make sense of the cascading series of crises, and grapple with the implications for their organizations and stakeholders.

To problem-solvers, it has also represented a “portal moment”: a time of profound opportunity to re-imagine and re-build a more equitable, inclusive, and high-functioning nation and planet. To harness this moment of possibility, leaders from the C-Suite to the grassroots needed a place where they could come together to process, explore, and act with a diverse group of fellow innovators and changemakers.

In response to the needs of leaders and communities, NationSwell created Build It Back Better (BIBB): an initiative designed to empower cross-sector leaders and organizations by offering them the time and space — in a highly curated and supported environment — to process the moment, surface paradigm-shifting insights and solutions, and to explore how they might collaborate to drive progress.

We created six expert tracks of activity: Climate Justice, Culture of Connection, Bridging & Belonging, Data for Good, Economic Opportunity, Education, and Future of Work. As part of each track, we produced public events to inspire many, facilitated small working groups to advance solutions, connected experts to spark meaningful new collaborations, created and distributed powerful thought leadership to amplify transformative ideas, and compiled unique insights reports to shape strategy and help break down silos across sectors.