NNIP Selects Geoff Smith at Chicago's Institute for Housing Studies as the Network Steward of the Year

The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership has selected Geoff Smith, Executive Director of DePaul University's Institute for Housing Studies, as the 2020 winner of the Network Steward of the Year Award. The award was created in September 2016 to recognize an NNIP Partner staff member who goes above and beyond expectations to strengthen the connectivity among Partners, increase knowledge sharing, and raise the profile of the network.

Geoff has been an active member in our peer learning network since his first NNIP meeting in 2014, well before his organization joined NNIP. His team is a nationwide leader in understanding housing markets, measuring the impact of park revitalization on neighborhoods and describing displacement risk. He has always been generous in sharing his methods and insights with both current and potential partners through formal settings like Partner meetings and informally on one-on-one calls.  He also assisted the network in kicking off our introduction to Opportunity Zones in a June 2019 panel, helping other partners envision how they could support their communities in informed project selection.

Besides his own time, Geoff has consistently supported his staff participating in the network.  His colleague Sarah Duda presented on a webinar to the Urban Waters Network and he regularly brings other staff to the Partner meetings. Behind the scenes, Geoff has also been incredibly helpful and responsive to multiple short turnaround requests from us at Urban to be a sounding board for ideas for new projects and connecting about funder relationships. Urban and NNIP partner staff sincerely appreciate all that Geoff does to support the network and thank the NNIP Executive Committee for assisting in the review process.