Local governments were suddenly facing new climate mandates (especially SB 375) but they didn’t have the people or capacity to actually do the work.

That was the reality Kate Wright heard again and again as she and her colleagues traveled across California, visiting planning departments, sustainability offices, and city halls big and small.

The state had raised the bar on climate action, but cities were already stretched thin. Many had one (or half of one) climate staff position. Others had planners juggling CEQA, housing, transportation, long-range planning, and now greenhouse gas reduction requirements on top of everything else.

In other words:
Cities weren’t resisting climate action. They were overwhelmed by it.

And that gap (the mandate-implementation gap) is what sparked CivicSpark Fellowship Program.

Instead of creating another report, another tool, or another requirement, Kate and her team designed a fellowship that put real people, real talent, and real capacity directly inside local governments. CivicSpark became the bridge:

• between state climate goals and local capacity,

• between new mandates and on-the-ground implementation,

• between emerging professionals and real public-sector experience.

It was a simple insight:
If cities can’t staff the work, the work doesn’t happen.

From my own experience working with at least four CivicSpark fellows, I can tell you they're now one of the most active climate-capacity engines California has.

All because it started with the most underrated strategy in government: listen first, build with people, design around real needs.

This 2 minute video summarize the story and interview with Kate Wright.

🧭 One Big Idea

Successful climate programs don’t start with policy. They start with good listening skills.

By grounding the program in what cities actually needed, Kate and her team built a model that met state goals and local capacities at the same time.

❓ One Key Question

What part of this idea breaks the moment it reaches a short-staffed city department?
If you can’t answer that, you don’t yet understand the real implementation barrier.

💡 One Practical Action

Take the program idea and cut it in half: Remove half the components and ask, “Would it still work?”
If yes, cut again.

What remains is usually the version cities can actually implement.

My main takeaways from the interview with Kate Wright:

1- Solve a shared problem: state mandate, local capacity gap, emerging talent.
CivicSpark worked because it aligned three needs at once.

2- Co-develop with the public lead, don’t just “get buy-in.”
The program design was shaped jointly with the California Governor’s Office, and Kate hired someone who had actually run service programs before.

3- Treat feedback and reporting as a design feature, not a compliance.
CivicSpark embedded communication channels and reporting so they could see trends across cities, understand where fellows struggled, and keep iterating the model.

4- Expect early-career frustration—and design for different time scales.
Fellows often felt discouraged that change wasn’t happening fast enough. Kate emphasized holding two time horizons at once: reacting in the moment while still carrying a long-term vision of where you’re going.

5- Implementation lives in the tension between crisis-response and abundance vision.
Kate talks about spending her days defending climate wins (e.g., Clean Air Act waivers) while still insisting on a hopeful, abundance-oriented narrative about clean air, clean transport, and healthy communities.

6- Build coalitions of the willing—and don’t waste energy on the uninterested.
For both CivicSpark and later IRA-related work, Kate leans on a “coalition of the willing” and collective action frameworks, focusing on partners who are ready to move and share a core vision.

7- Impact depends on choosing the right messenger, not owning the microphone.
When packaging big ideas or legislative opportunities, Kate’s first instinct is: who has the political capital and credibility to carry this? She actively looks for the best mayor, alum, or partner to front the message, even when the idea is hers

Missed last week’s story? Watch the 2 minute story here.

Looking for ways to to measure your community impact?

Nader Afzalan, Ph.D.

Founder and CEO, The Triangle

Program Director, Sustainable Environmental Design, UC Berkeley