Part 6

Facilitator Playbook

For the seven track leads. Everything you need to run a standardized, dignified session — the script to name the problem, the data to hand the room, the moves to design the solution, and the exact steps to enter the score in this app.

Your table

Track lead (you). Owns the arc, the artifact, and the room. You also fill in the scorecard in this app as the room decides — phone or laptop, live.
Community voice. Named in advance. Ensures lived experience is heard on every decision.
Data curator. Cross-summit. Delivers your Mobility Snapshot and keeps indicators consistent.

Norming · 5 minutes at the top

The session that saves the summit

Read this out loud, word for word. It sets the tone.

"We have 90 minutes and one job: leave with a shared answer, not seven private ones. One conversation at a time. Every claim comes with evidence or a question. When a voice goes unheard we say, 'Say more about how that lands where you live.' We'll type into the app what the room decided, not what any one person said."

Morning · 90 minutes · Name the problem

Step-by-step script

Open with the Mobility Snapshot (the data)

0:00 – 0:10

Pull up this track's brief from Per-track briefs. Read all five parts out loud, in this order:

Current state — the headline number today.
Trend — which direction it's moving.
Comparison — Birmingham vs the U.S. or a peer city.
Mobility indicator — the one sentence that names the gap.
Design question — the room's job for the next 80 minutes.

Say: "This is the data we start with. If a number is wrong or missing, we mark it and keep going — we do not skip the design question."

Root causes on the wall

0:10 – 0:40

What a root cause is. A root cause names why the gap in the snapshot exists — a structural or systemic reason, not a symptom and not a solution. Rule of thumb: if it starts with "we need more..." it's a solution, not a cause. If it restates the number, it's a symptom.

Good: "Appraisals in Black-majority ZIPs come in below sale price, so refis stall."

Not a cause (symptom): "Homeownership is only 45%."

Not a cause (solution): "We should launch a down-payment fund."

Run it like this.

Silent write, 5 min. Prompt out loud: "Why does this gap exist? One cause per sticky. Structural, not personal."
Post & read, 10 min. Each person reads their own; no debate.
Cluster, 10 min. Group duplicates on the wall into 3–5 themes. Name each theme in one line.
Dot-vote, 5 min. 3 dots per person. Keep the top 3–5 themes.

What to enter in the app. Type one line per surviving theme into Root causes, in the room's own words. Aim for 3–5 total, never more than 7. Each should read as a full sentence a resident could understand.

Evidence pass

0:40 – 1:10

The rule. Every root cause on the wall gets at least one piece of evidence next to it before the room moves on. No evidence, no cause — either find some now or strike it.

What counts as evidence (any one is enough):

A number with a source. Example: "HMDA 2023: Black applicants denied at 2.1× the white rate in Jefferson County."
A named report or study. Example: "Brookings 2018 appraisal-gap analysis."
A lived-experience account from someone in the room or the community, attributed by first name + neighborhood. Example: "Denise, Ensley — three appraisals came in $40K under offer."
A named practitioner who has seen it repeatedly. Example: "Neighborhood Housing Services intake team."

Prompt to the room. "Who knows this to be true, and how? Give me a number, a report, or a story from a named neighborhood."

What to enter in the app. One entry in Evidence & sources per piece, in the format Cause → Evidence (source). Example: "Appraisal bias → 2.1× denial gap (HMDA 2023)". Lived-experience quotes count — attribute them.

If a cause has zero evidence after 5 minutes of trying, mark it "needs verification" in the app and keep going. Do not delete it — the curator can chase it after the summit.

Propose one keystone metric

1:10 – 1:25

Show the 2–3 Keystone Candidates from this track's brief. The room picks ONE. Community voice speaks last and has veto weight on the choice.

Rule of thumb: one metric beats ten. If you cannot name an owner for it in the afternoon, it is the wrong metric.

Enter the choice into Keystone metric proposed.

Submit the morning half

1:25 – 1:30

Confirm Root causes, Evidence, and Keystone are all filled, then leave the scorecard in draft — do not press Submit yet.

Afternoon · 90 minutes · Design the solution

Step-by-step script

Confirm the keystone and name the owner

0:00 – 0:15

Re-read the morning's keystone metric. Ask: "Which table or organization commits to owning this number for the next year?" Write the answer on the wall.

Type the org into Owner (table or organization).

Build the domain — metric, owner, checkpoint

0:15 – 0:40

Walk the room through four fields, out loud, one at a time:

Metric. The keystone, phrased so a resident can understand it.
Owner. Named org above.
Checkpoint. Pick a date within the next 6 months when the owner reports back.
Domain score 0–4. Use the Ore-to-Forged scale (below). The room agrees on the number; tap it in.

Score the 5 system measures

0:40 – 1:05

What you're scoring. Not the metric itself — the system around it. These five measures ask whether Birmingham's institutions are actually set up to move this number. A great metric with a weak system will not move.

How to run it. Read each question out loud. The room agrees on a single 0–4 using the Ore-to-Forged scale (0 = no one does this, 4 = this is public, owned, and tied to real dollars). If the room splits, take the lower number — it's the honest one. Tap it in as you go.

SA-1 Shared definitions. Do organizations define success the same way?
SA-2 Data sharing. Is data shared across sectors, not siloed?
SA-3 Ownership. Does each metric have a named, accountable owner?
SA-4 Coordination. Do partners act together rather than in parallel?
SA-5 Resident voice. Do residents help decide what counts, with real power?

Tip: it is normal — and useful — for a track's first score to be low. A 1 or 2 is the room being honest about where the system actually stands today. The point is to move it, not to protect it.

Set the 6 / 12 / 24 month checkpoint owner

1:05 – 1:20

Confirm who reports back at each interval. Add anything the curator must know into Session notes.

Submit the scorecard

1:20 – 1:30

Press Submit scorecard. Photograph the wall, add any final context into notes, then close the room.

In the app

How to add the scoring

Do this live from a phone or laptop. Everyone at the table can watch it fill in.

Open Enter, type your name, choose Facilitator, and select this room's track. No password. On phone: tap the ☰ menu, then Enter.
Go to My Track. If you are assigned to more than one, pick this room's track from the dropdown at the top right.
Morning (top of page). Add each root cause and each piece of evidence with the +Add button (or press Enter). Type the keystone metric into Keystone metric proposed. Everything autosaves when you tap out of the field.
Afternoon (lower half). Fill Owner and Checkpoint date. Tap the 0–4 circle for Domain score. Then tap a 0–4 for each of the 5 system measures.
Add any context the next room needs into Session notes. Every change is stamped with the editor's name in the room activity log at the bottom of the page.
When the room is finished, press Submit scorecard. The card locks and shows up on the Live scorecard for the closing plenary.

The 0–4 scale — Ore to Forged

Ask three questions: Is it defined the same way by more than one org? Does someone own it on a cadence? Is it tied to a real decision about money or policy? The number of yes answers is close to the score.

0Ore
No shared definition. Counted in fragments.
1Smelting
Defined by one group, not yet shared.
2Pouring
Shared metric, partial adoption.
3Casting
Shared, owned, tracked on a cadence.
4Forged
Public, owned, tied to where dollars land.

What the 5 system-measures score means

The five measures ask the same question five different ways: is the system around this metric strong enough to actually move it? Each is scored 0–4 on the Ore-to-Forged scale above, so the room's total lands somewhere between 0 and 20. That total is not a grade for the track — it's a diagnosis of how ready Birmingham is to move this number.

SA-1Shared definitions
Ask: Do organizations define success the same way?
Low = every org uses its own definition. High = one shared definition everyone can point to.
SA-2Data sharing
Ask: Is data shared across sectors, not siloed?
Low = data lives in silos or spreadsheets. High = partners see the same data on a shared cadence.
SA-3Ownership
Ask: Does each metric have a named, accountable owner?
Low = no one is accountable if the number stalls. High = a named org owns it publicly.
SA-4Coordination
Ask: Do partners act together rather than in parallel?
Low = programs run in parallel and duplicate. High = partners plan and act together on the same target.
SA-5Resident voice
Ask: Do residents help decide what counts, with real power?
Low = residents are consulted after decisions. High = residents help set the metric and have real power over it.

How to read the total (0–20).

0–5 — Fragmented. No shared plumbing yet. First-year job is to get one shared definition and one named owner.
6–10 — Emerging. Pieces exist in silos. First-year job is to connect two organizations around the same number on the same cadence.
11–15 — Coordinated. Owners and cadence exist. First-year job is to tie the number to a real budget or policy decision.
16–20 — Forged. System is ready to move the metric. First-year job is to publish, report on cadence, and defend the ownership.

How the facilitator uses the score in the room. After the room lands the five numbers, read the total out loud and name the band. Then ask one question: "Which of the five is lowest, and what would move it up by one in the next six months?"That single answer becomes the track's system commitment for the year, alongside the keystone metric. Enter it in Session notes as "System commitment: raise [SA-#] from X to X+1 by [date]".

The point of the score is not to look good. It is to make the invisible visible — to show the plenary exactly where the system needs work before the metric can move.

The data · use this at 10:35

Per-track briefs

Every track's Mobility Snapshot and its 2–3 keystone candidates. Read the snapshot out loud; hand the candidates to the room at the 1:10 mark.

Capital Access & Wealth Building

Expanding capital, ownership & financial opportunity · Forum A

Problem statement

Access to affordable and equitable capital remains one of the most significant barriers to wealth creation in Birmingham. Historical discrimination in lending, limited access to financial institutions, credit constraints, and unequal investment patterns have prevented many residents, entrepreneurs, developers, and homeowners from building assets and creating generational wealth. Closing Birmingham's wealth gap requires transforming how capital is deployed, who receives investment, and how financial systems support historically underserved communities.

Current state: Poverty is 24.7%, nearly double the U.S. rate of 12.5%; median household income $46,051; homeownership 45.5%.
Trend: Property values rising (14.6% YoY) while ownership stays low — gains accrue to existing owners.
Comparison: U.S. poverty 12.5%. Black-majority ZIP codes are systematically undervalued; Ensley properties have been appraised near $0.
Mobility indicator: Homeownership gap plus appraisal and lending bias.

Design question · read out loud
"How does capital reach the residents and neighborhoods it has historically skipped?"

Source: Data USA / ACS 2024; Brookings valuation research · SOURCED

Keystone candidates · pick ONE

Homeownership gap across neighborhoods
Primary wealth vehicle; the playbook's worked example. · Owner table: Investors · Data: ACS; HMDA
Mortgage & small-business loan denial rate by ZIP
Surfaces the same redlining pattern via geography; matches HMDA's native cut and names ZIPs to act on. · Owner table: Investors · Data: HMDA by census tract/ZIP; CDFI partners

Education & Workforce Pathways

Birmingham's talent pipeline · Forum B

Problem statement

Educational attainment and workforce participation remain among the strongest predictors of economic mobility. However, unequal access to quality education, workforce development, career pathways, and high-growth industries continues to limit long-term economic outcomes for many Birmingham residents. Historical inequities, skills gaps, and changing labor market demands require stronger alignment between education systems, employers, workforce partners, and community organizations to prepare residents for family-sustaining careers and lifelong economic success.

Current state: About 29.4% of Birmingham adults 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher; 88.1% have a high school diploma (2023).
Trend: VERIFY: pull the multi-year attainment trend from ACS S1501 to show direction.
Comparison: VERIFY: Alabama ~27% and U.S. ~35% bachelor's+ — confirm exact current figures.
Mobility indicator: Postsecondary attainment gap and the earnings premium it carries.

Design question · read out loud
"How do we connect education to career so a diploma reliably becomes a living wage?"

Source: U.S. Census 2023 est. · PARTLY VERIFY

Keystone candidates · pick ONE

Living-wage employment 2 years after a credential
Outcome, not activity: does training pay off. · Owner table: Implementers · Data: State wage records; workforce partners
Postsecondary attainment gap by neighborhood
Names where the pipeline breaks. · Owner table: Community Leaders · Data: ACS S1501 by tract

Neighborhoods & Infrastructure

Designing places that expand opportunity · Forum C

Problem statement

Where a person lives continues to influence their ability to access opportunity. Historic redlining, disinvestment, housing inequities, aging infrastructure, transportation barriers, and uneven public investment have produced neighborhoods with vastly different economic outcomes. These place-based disparities continue to shape wealth accumulation, business development, educational opportunity, health, and quality of life. Birmingham must intentionally invest in neighborhoods in ways that restore opportunity, prevent displacement, and create pathways for existing residents to benefit from future growth.

Current state: City homeownership is 45.5%, far below the U.S. rate of 65.2%; median property value $158,800.
Trend: Median property value rose 14.6% in a single year ($138,600 → $158,800, 2023–2024): appreciation without broad ownership.
Comparison: U.S. homeownership 65.2%; Alabama 70.2%. Place still predicts opportunity (Opportunity Atlas).
Mobility indicator: Homeownership rate and neighborhood-level access to transit, housing, and services.

Design question · read out loud
"How do we invest in place so where you live stops predicting how far you rise?"

Source: Data USA / ACS 2024; Opportunity Atlas · SOURCED

Keystone candidates · pick ONE

Homeownership rate by neighborhood
Place-based wealth and stability. · Owner table: Investors · Data: ACS; county assessor
Transit access to jobs within 30 minutes
Connectivity as opportunity. · Owner table: Decision Makers · Data: Transit authority; LEHD

Justice & Government

Trust, safety & civic opportunity · Forum D

Problem statement

Government policies, institutional practices, public investment, and civic leadership have historically shaped both opportunity and inequity within Birmingham. From redlining and discriminatory public policy to unequal access to government resources and decision-making, institutional systems have contributed to persistent racial and economic disparities. At the same time, local government possesses the tools to remove barriers, restore trust, and create more equitable pathways to opportunity. Advancing economic mobility requires transparent governance, equitable policy, cross-sector collaboration, and meaningful community engagement that ensures every resident has a voice in shaping Birmingham's future.

Current state: VERIFY: City of Birmingham procurement dollars reaching local and Black-owned firms as a share of total spend — pull from the Office of Business Diversity & Opportunity / BOLD reporting.
Trend: VERIFY: procurement trend from City reporting.
Comparison: VERIFY: minority-procurement share vs a peer city.
Mobility indicator: Share of public contracts and dollars reaching local and Black-owned firms; institutional-trust and civic-participation measures.

Design question · read out loud
"How do public dollars and public trust become engines of mobility rather than barriers?"

Source: Needs local administrative data · VERIFY

Keystone candidates · pick ONE

911 priority-1 response-time gap across neighborhoods (minutes)
Safety delivered is the most tangible government promise; gaps by ZIP name where the system underperforms. · Owner table: Decision Makers · Data: BPD CAD data by beat/ZIP
Municipal-court fine & fee burden as a share of household income, by ZIP
Court debt is a mobility tax; per-ZIP burden shows where the justice system extracts rather than protects. · Owner table: Decision Makers · Data: Municipal court collections; ACS income by ZIP
Employment rate 12 months post-release for residents returning to Birmingham
Reentry outcome, not activity: does the system return people to work. · Owner table: Implementers · Data: State DOC reentry data; workforce partners
311 service-request resolution-time gap across neighborhoods
Everyday responsiveness — potholes, lights, debris — is the trust signal residents actually feel. · Owner table: Decision Makers · Data: City 311 system

Data, Strategy & Measurement

From silos to shared measurement · Forum E

Problem statement

Birmingham has no shortage of data describing disparities in income, wealth, educational attainment, neighborhood conditions, health outcomes, and economic opportunity. The challenge is not collecting more information — it is aligning institutions around shared definitions of success, common performance measures, and coordinated strategies. Without a common economic mobility framework, organizations continue to work independently, making it difficult to evaluate impact, prioritize investments, and scale what works. The city must move from measuring disparities to measuring progress toward upward mobility.

Current state: Birmingham has committed leaders and many programs, but organizations collect data independently, define success differently, and measure with different methods — so collective impact is invisible.
Trend: No shared, ecosystem-wide mobility scorecard exists today; this summit is the first attempt to build one.
Comparison: Peer cities that sustain mobility gains run a shared, independently-governed measurement backbone (Urban Institute Upward Mobility Framework).
Mobility indicator: Presence or absence of shared definitions, data-sharing, ownership, coordination, and resident voice.

Design question · read out loud
"What must Birmingham measure together to know whether any of this is working?"

Source: Playbook diagnosis; Urban Institute framework · DIAGNOSIS

Keystone candidates · pick ONE

Adoption rate of shared metric definitions across partner orgs
The precondition for every other measure. · Owner table: Data Curator + Decision Makers · Data: Partner MOUs; scorecard sign-ons
Number of Layer-A domains with a named accountable owner + cadence
Ownership is what makes a metric real. · Owner table: Data Curator · Data: This app · curator console

Public Health & Environmental Justice

Healthy communities that support mobility · Forum F

Problem statement

Economic mobility cannot be achieved without addressing the conditions that influence health and quality of life. Communities experiencing higher rates of chronic disease, environmental hazards, food insecurity, inadequate healthcare access, aging infrastructure, and climate vulnerability also experience greater economic hardship. These disparities are concentrated in many of the same neighborhoods impacted by historical disinvestment and systemic inequities. Improving public health and advancing environmental justice are essential strategies for increasing economic mobility and creating resilient communities.

Current state: Jefferson County average life expectancy is about 73 years, roughly 5 years below the U.S. average of 78. Historically Black neighborhoods (College Hills, Fountain Heights, Titusville) show the lowest; wealthy majority-white areas (Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills) the highest.
Trend: County health leaders flagged ‘excessive premature deaths’ at the 2025 State of the County Health event.
Comparison: U.S. average 78 years. VERIFY: exact neighborhood gap in years from the Community Health Equity Report / City Health Dashboard.
Mobility indicator: Life-expectancy gap between neighborhoods — the summit's most politically charged keystone.

Design question · read out loud
"What would it take to close the neighborhood life-expectancy gap as an economic strategy, not only a health one?"

Source: Jefferson County Health 2025; BirminghamWatch 2020 · PARTLY VERIFY

Keystone candidates · pick ONE

Life-expectancy gap between neighborhoods (years)
The honest keystone; economic as much as health. · Owner table: Community Leaders · Data: Jefferson County Health; City Health Dashboard
Food & primary-care access in the neighborhoods with the lowest life expectancy
Ties the upstream driver directly to the keystone gap; place-based rather than race-based. · Owner table: Implementers · Data: USDA food access; county health; City Health Dashboard

Economic Opportunity & Entrepreneurship

Pathways to ownership, innovation & wealth · Forum Theatre

Problem statement

Generational wealth is built through ownership, entrepreneurship, quality employment, and access to economic opportunity. Yet many Birmingham residents — particularly those living in historically redlined communities — continue to face systemic barriers to starting businesses, growing enterprises, securing procurement opportunities, and creating community wealth. Limited entrepreneurial ecosystems and unequal access to opportunity restrict both individual prosperity and neighborhood economic resilience. Expanding entrepreneurship must become a central strategy for reducing the racial wealth gap and increasing economic mobility.

Current state: Black residents are about 67% of Birmingham, but only about 29% of the area's registered / minority-owned businesses are Black-owned (roughly 770 of 2,653).
Trend: The Birmingham Black Business Census launched in 2025; volunteers have identified roughly 650 active Black-owned businesses so far.
Comparison: Nationally, Black-owned firms are just 2.4% of employer businesses vs 14.2% of population. Birmingham ranks ~53rd nationally; Atlanta leads.
Mobility indicator: Share of Black-owned employer firms relative to Black population share — the ownership gap.

Design question · read out loud
"What would it take for business ownership in Birmingham to reflect the people who live here?"

Source: 2022 ABS / Urban Impact; Brookings 2024 · SOURCED

Keystone candidates · pick ONE

Employer-firm ownership per 1,000 residents, by ZIP
Inclusive-ownership signal cut by place — a ZIP that under-indexes tells the same story without race as the label. · Owner table: Implementers · Data: Annual Business Survey; Black Business Census; ACS population by ZIP
City procurement dollars to local small firms as a share of total spend
Ties opportunity to real public spend using the City's own local/small classification. · Owner table: Decision Makers · Data: City Office of Business Diversity & Opportunity