The Health & Wellbeing Capacity Building Series: From Vision to Action was a five-session learning experience designed to help cities strengthen their ability to advance community wellbeing through clear frameworks, actionable policy tools, meaningful data, sustainable resources, and creative processes grounded in arts and culture to amplify impact.
This webinar series was designed to help city leaders make concrete decisions – from defining priorities to aligning funding and implementing solutions in real-world conditions. Each session builds toward helping cities answer a core question: How do we turn a vision for wellbeing into sustained, measurable impact?
Through a mix of national expertise and city-grounded practice, the series emphasized impact, alignment, and scalability, supporting cities as they strengthen how they deliver results for residents.
Recordings From This Series
Building the Foundation: Defining and Advancing Wellbeing for Cities
“Wellbeing” is a critical yet sometimes misunderstood concept in public policy. Many cities struggle with how to measure, define, and connect wellbeing to local programs and investments. This session explored how city leaders can integrate wellbeing into local governing strategies and develop a shared understanding of wellbeing that reflects local priorities and resident experiences.
Watch the recording to learn how wellbeing can function as a unifying framework across departments, how to adapt indicators to their local context, and to examine ways to integrate wellbeing into planning, performance management, and community engagement. Led by Anita Chandra, the RAND distinguished chair in American social policy, and Lourdes Aceves, director of NLC’s Health & Wellbeing team, this session sets the stage for the Capacity Building Series by grounding participants in a shared understanding that can be used to guide real policy, funding, and implementation decisions.
Frameworks for Action: Policy Tools & Real-World Examples
The second session will highlight tools and resources to help cities advance wellbeing in their communities through policy and systems change. Policy is one of the most powerful levers a city can deploy, shaping how solutions are scaled equitably across communities. Participants will be introduced to two complementary tools: the National League of Cities’ Policy & Systems Change Compass, co-developed with the Urban Institute, and the Local Policy Hub.
The session will provide an overview of the Compass — a practical, step-by-step framework that guides cross-departmental teams through problem definition, root cause analysis, and policy development. The session will also highlight the Local Policy Hub’s Healthy Housing module, providing policy examples, along with downloadable ordinances, adaptable language, and supporting resources. Participants will also explore how to move from framework to adoption and implementation across departments.
In the next session, we will focus on how cities can use data and storytelling to measure, communicate, and align around the impact of these policy choices.
Speakers:
- Lourdes Aceves, MPP, Director, Health & Wellbeing, National League of Cities
- Bucoda Warren, Chief Policy Analyst with the city of Tacoma, WA
Arlington, TX: Using Creative Communications to Explain the Annual Budget
Reimagining Local Support for Foster Youth
Empowering Small Cities Through Local Data
- NLC Partnerships
From Numbers to Narrative: Turning Your Budget into a Story of Impact
- Indigov
Three Things to Know Video Series: May 2026
