The Pitchfest was originally conceptualized in Pilot: New York City, a plan we co-authored with the New York City Economic Development Corporation in 2023, focused on bolstering the innovation capabilities of city agencies. It draws inspiration from co-founder matchmaking and accelerator programs offered in Silicon Valley, like Y Combinator. 

In 2024, the Sloan Foundation funded a trial of the Pitchfest in New York City, focused first on pairing the City’s built environment agencies with university researchers. We later expanded the program to include eligibility across all city agencies and also included participation from volunteer Fellows from civic society. What began as a small experiment has since grown into an annual event. Our 2025 program included participation from 23 New York City agencies, 250+ academic researchers, and 120+ civic volunteers.

Thanks to the scale of the 2025 event in New York City, we started to see interest in the Pitchfest program from other localities. In response to that demand, we raised philanthropic funding from Coefficient Giving, to set up a national platform to assist other localities in organizing their own, high-quality Pitchfest events. 

In the next year, we plan to work with three additional localities on delivering the Pitchfest program. We plan to prioritize locations in which there is a strong local host organization, and a supplemental funding pool available to support projects that emerge from the Pitchfest event. The reason? We’d like to focus on places that have the ability to keep running the event on their own in future years, without requiring as much hands-on support from the national Pilot City team. Long-term, our hope is to emulate the TED model, in which our national organization provides shared, open-source resources, which each location can then run with on their own—sort of like TEDx. 

In cases where a local funding pool is not currently available, we still encourage you to reach out. We may be able to work with you to identify national or local donors interested in supporting your event. 

We have seen a broad range of projects—large and small—emerge from matches that were made at the Pitchfest. The projects that receive funding tend to reflect the cross-section of city priorities and donor interests. We can work with you to tailor project eligibility to the outcomes you hope to achieve from your event. 

Below is a representative sampling of some of our favorite projects to date: ‍

Expanding Open Streets for Neighborhood Schools ‍

The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) launched the Open Streets program during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing schools to shutter streets in front of their buildings, to create safe space for recess, outdoor learning, meals, and student pick-ups and drop-offs. However, the program serves only a small portion of New York City’s more than 1,700 public schools today. Dr. Michael Cassidy of Mount Sinai is collaborating with DOT to evaluate the program’s health and educational impacts, potentially supporting future program expansion.‍

Protecting Drinking Water from Harmful Algal Growth‍

Growth of diatom algae has impacted production efficiency in New York City’s drinking water system. Sometime in the next few years, part of the system will be shut down for repairs, making it critical that the remainder of the system operates at maximum production to meet the city’s water demand. Dr. Andrew Juhl, a professor at Columbia University, is helping the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) investigate causes of algal growth and define strategies to mitigate its impact.‍

Improving Soil Health Through Leaf Mulching‍

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) spends significant resources raking and hauling leaves from the 1,000 acres its buildings occupy. NYCHA launched a pilot program to substitute raking with leaf mulching, saving staff time. NYCHA needed scientific evidence of soil health benefits to procure additional mulching attachments for its mowers and to justify expansion. Dr. Joshua Cheng of Brooklyn College led a study analyzing soil samples in the mulched vs. raked lawns, which showed that leaf mulching improved most soil health indicators. This research supported NYCHA’s case for investment, helping secure a $400,000 USDA grant that included buying additional mulchers and funding continued soil analysis with Dr. Cheng’s lab.‍

Re-Designing the Sign-Up Flow for Youth Programs‍

The New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) hosts a public-facing platform to help New Yorkers find and apply for DYCD-funded programs. Originally launched in 2015 and upgraded in 2019 for mobile access, it is now being redesigned as version 3.0. DYCD engaged a Fellow to lead a research and human-centered design process to improve how parents, youth, and community members search, evaluate, and apply to programs. The Fellow conducted surveys, focus groups, and usability testing to inform mobile-first wireframes and interactive prototypes. Her deliverables included a visual design system and high-fidelity mockups for developer handoff. DYCD leadership approved the designs and committed 45 weeks of internal staff capacity to implement them.‍

Measuring Vehicle Activity to Reduce Emissions‍

To support New York City’s carbon neutrality goals, the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sought better data on how many vehicles are driving and parked at a given time, as vehicles contribute about 20% of citywide emissions. A Fellow developed two machine learning models that analyze images from public traffic cameras: One identifies vehicle presence, and the other detects vehicle movement. OMB now plans to run the models over time to identify local emissions patterns across the city’s neighborhoods. It intends to use the data to assess emissions impacts of the transportation interventions it is weighing whether to fund.‍

Mapping Lead-Containing Consumer Products

As the nation’s largest municipal public health agency, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) sought to bring attention to lead-containing consumer products—like spices and cookware—identified during lead poisoning investigations across the U.S. A Fellow developed a prototype platform to aggregate and visualize New York City’s open‑source consumer product data. Already, 16 U.S. jurisdictions have committed to sharing their data, launching a first‑of‑its‑kind multijurisdictional partnership to pilot this new national platform. Through the partnership, DOHMH aims to encourage corrective action in the products’ countries of origin, among other outcomes.

In late 2025, Pilot City merged with Renaissance Philanthropy, to help facilitate our expansion beyond New York City. 

Renaissance Philanthropy is a non-profit with a mission to fuel a 21st-century renaissance by increasing the ambition of philanthropists, scientists, and innovators. It primarily does so through raising time-bound, thesis-driven philanthropic funds led by scientific experts, enabling philanthropists and foundations to support ideas that advance entire fields forward, without building large in-house teams. Renaissance Philanthropy’s leadership is composed of former officials from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. It has offices in New York City, D.C., and London. 

Our affiliation with Renaissance Philanthropy will enable us to nimbly support a more diverse array of localities. It will also give expert participants in the Pitchfest program access to unique follow-on opportunities to scale their impact.