After 11 years as CNT’s CEO, I’m stepping down this week. It’s been a remarkable journey.

In 1978, I was a recent college graduate looking for a way to reinvent cities. I was fortunate to  discover Scott Bernstein, only a few years older, who was just founding a new organization aimed at promoting neighborhood innovation and empowerment. I came on board.

Remarkably, CNT’s core DNA was established at that early date and has continued to drive the organization for 38 years. To pursue the mission of making cities more environmentally and economically sustainable, CNT has pursued three strategies simultaneously:

• Make data and information tools available that empower and enable residents and decision makers to understand problems and opportunities
• Invent and test new real-world solutions
• Change the rules and opportunities through changing policy and public and private investments

In those early days, I was a founding editor of The Neighborhood Works, a publication for community development activists and practitioners that began as an every-other-week clipping service and evolved into a magazine. 

Today, the information tools have changed, a lot—think about the H+T Affordability Index and AllTransit^TM—and the technologies have changed—somewhat—but that three-legged stool is still the core way that CNT thinks and operates.

While I left CNT back in the mid-80s, that DNA had imprinted. And 15 years ago I returned to run the Community Energy Cooperative, a cutting-edge initiative to push the envelope on energy conservation and save consumers money. The Co-op has now evolved into Elevate Energy, a best-in-class nonprofit energy services organization.

I’ve led CNT for the past 11 years, a time that saw CNT dynamically transform from a Chicago-based organization to a national innovation center for urban sustainability. For us, “national” has never meant “Washington-based.” Chicago is still our home and we continue to be deeply committed to our city, but CNT now works in urban areas across the country on a wide range of urban sustainability projects.

The interactive map below conveys the range and scope of CNT’s reach in recent years. Roll the cursor over the map and learn about our various projects. If one intrigues you, click on it for more information. Is your city on this map?

When I look at this map of CNT’s urban sustainability work, I’m reminded of the game-changing insights we’ve brought to the sustainability conversation. Three things in particular stand out:

• While the challenges facing cities and regions are often similar, there is a great difference in the receptivity of individual cities to innovation and change. CNT continues to look for partners that are open new solutions to urban problems.
• When we place urban problems in siloes, we end up pursing a laundry list of solutions with little relationship to each other. We miss the chance to accomplish multiple “goods” at the same time. CNT is always seeking ways to make cities more sustainable through interventions with multiple co-benefits.  For example, our solutions might solve basement flooding and reduce the cost of living while also promoting economic development, job creation, and complete streets.
• The gold standard of sustainability initiatives make cities work better for everyone while also reducing poverty and expanding economic opportunity. CNT is always looking for opportunities to capture the benefits of sustainability for disadvantaged communities.

All of this is made possible through partnerships and innovation. It’s humbling to step back and think about the broad coalition of other organizations – from funders to governments to fellow nonprofits – who have believed in our mission as strongly as we do.

While I am leaving CNT, the work that has inspired me so deeply for nearly four decades will continue. I’ve been honored to share my time at CNT with an array of brilliant people, and CNT has remarkably thoughtful, innovative, and capable staff carrying on the work. I can’t wait to see CNT’s impacts in our cities and communities in the years and decades to come.

Kathy Tholin was CNT's Chief Executive Officer until July 8, 2016.