Bloomberg Philanthropies Recognizes Baltimore for Using Data to Improve Lives   Baltimore is one of the first 50 cities to have achieved "What Works Cities Certification" in "recognition of its use of data to guide decision-making and improve residents’ lives." What Works Cities Certification - purportedly the "national standard of excellence in data-driven city governance" - essentially measures the extent to which city leaders use data and evidence in  decision-making. This is a national initiative by Bloomberg Philanthropies to help cities use data and evidence more effectively to tackle problems. Some 16 of the 50 cities were honored earlier in 2021. "What Works Cities Certification" assesses cities on their data-driven decision-making practices, such as whether they use data to set goals and track progress, allocate funding, evaluate program effectiveness, and achieve desired outcomes from contracts with outside vendors. It also measures whether cities are publicly and transparently communicating about their use of data and evidence. Bloomberg Philanthropies found that in the last year Baltimore has shown measurable progress on these data practices, such as (1) the Mayor’s Action Plan, which lists the goals the administration is committed to making significant progress on and accomplishing; (2) Open Baltimore, the City’s public data portal, providing data, downloadable files, ability to analyze and visualize data like COVID-19 dashboards, see Minority- and Women-Owned Business Finders, and data about Baltimore’s City Budget and spending; and (3) the Department of Housing and Community Development’s CoDe map, with citywide housing data used in community development and strategic planning, to track rent support, and survey building code enforcement. This map has been used by 120,000 in the past year and by the city’s legal aid effort to fight COVID-19 evictions.  The Certification program began in 2017, with cities over 30,000 population eligible to participate. Cities are awarded Silver, Gold, or Platinum Certification "depending on their level of data sophistication." All 50 cities that have achieved Certification is here. The program was developed by Results for America with the What Works Cities Certification Standard Committee, and supported by the other What Works Cities partners: Harvard's Kennedy School, Johns Hopkins University, and the Behavioral Insights Team. Over 200 cities have completed a Certification assessment, comparing their practices against the developed standards.          *****  Source: Office of the Mayor press release, December 15, 2021.