A national ideas competition with big lessons for cities

Image by Cath Virginia for Bloomberg Philanthropies

March 13, 2026

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To deliver on their most ambitious goals, local leaders know they need to tap into ideas and expertise from beyond City Hall. But doing so effectively means confronting a familiar obstacle: cynicism that can take hold when residents have seen participation initiatives come and go without clear follow-through.

The Republic of Ideas challenge was designed with that reality in mind. Launched last year by Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the national competition sought ideas that could help double the country’s GDP by 2036. And what stood out most was the team’s creative approach at getting ahead of skepticism by designing a different kind of experience for participants. By pursuing thoughtful outreach, making realistic commitments, and delivering tangible signs of progress, the government made its interest in residents’ ideas credible. And in doing so, it assembled a model that leaders everywhere, including mayors, can deploy the next time they go hunting for new solutions.

Designing around skepticism.

Setting audacious goals is a key way leaders at every level of government drive action, and President Abinader’s aim of doubling his country’s economic activity over the next decade certainly met that bar. But one thing he and his team recognized early on was that any growth project would falter if it were perceived as being driven solely by business leaders and top officials.

“The president said, ‘I don't want this to just be another public-private partnership,’ recalls Peter Prazmowski, executive director of the Dominican Council on National Competitiveness and the government’s point person on the effort. ”I want society to be engaged as well. We have to change the narrative.”

That’s why the government launched the Republic of Ideas, which invited everyone 18 or older to submit an idea that drives progress toward the country’s growth goal. From the outset, leaders emphasized that the competition was more than a symbolic engagement gesture. It was an acknowledgment that the whole of society had to contribute their entrepreneurship to make such an aggressive timeline feasible.

“The Dominican Republic we envision for 2036 will not come by chance or from the efforts of a few,” Abinader explained when launching the competition. He added, “We want talent to be our defining trait. We want good ideas to become public policies, projects, businesses, and tangible solutions. We want creativity to be the engine of our development.”

Of course, the president and his team knew rhetoric wasn’t enough, and that their success would depend on what they did next.

Building credibility over time.

The administration invested heavily in outreach to ensure residents understood this new opportunity and believed it was meaningful. Organizers conducted research to understand what would motivate participation and shaped everything from the competition’s name to its incentives accordingly. National and local partners held roughly 150 events, often in collaboration with universities and other institutions, relying heavily on face-to-face engagement.

“It was a very localized, bottom-up approach,” Prazmowski says. “It was easy to participate, and the messages were clear.”

Design choices within the competition itself also served to reinforce a sense of fairness. The challenge accepted ideas across three tiers: early concepts, prototypes, and market-ready products or services. That structure widened the field beyond established vendors and well-resourced startups.

“If you’re not an expert, but you have an idea, your idea should have a fair chance,” explains Sascha Haselmayer, who works on the Government Innovation team at Bloomberg Philanthropies, which helped Abinader and his administration recognize the potential of an ideas competition.

Finalists were provided with stipends to attend an Ideas Camp, where they refined proposals, received coaching, and met with senior officials to assess feasibility. This level of sustained support signaled both that the government wanted ideas to be as strong as possible and that it was seriously considering them.

At the same time, leaders were careful not to overpromise. Winners, announced last month in Santo Domingo, will receive prize money of up to $25,000, but no guarantees of contracts or policy adoption. By setting realistic expectations, the government reduced the risk that unmet assumptions would undermine trust.

The final tally of 558 submitted ideas from nearly every province suggested many residents were starting to buy in. And the larger process offered visible proof that this was more than a one-off engagement exercise.

Translating the approach to the city level.

For cities, the lesson is not simply to launch more participation initiatives. Ideas competitions are already common in local government. The critical takeaway is that when mayors set bold goals and invite contributions, design choices determine whether those efforts build credibility or reinforce skepticism.

As Haselmayer puts it, “The value here is in using a political priority as a foundation and then signaling that the city is open for business to residents.”

Embedding clear rules, transparent criteria, and realistic commitments into any call for ideas can help narrow the gap between rhetoric and reality. Visible milestones and sustained communication matter. Likewise, being explicit about what participants can expect (and what they cannot) can prevent disappointment that erodes confidence in public institutions.

As Juan Felipe López Egaña, a longtime partner of Bloomberg Philanthropies whose team helped Dominican officials design their competition notes, they were deliberate about identifying “small milestones—trust-building moments—that the challenge would achieve week by week or month by month.”

When the winning ideas, which ranged from sensors that track food deterioration in real time to a procurement platform aimed at expanding small entrepreneurs’ access to larger markets, were announced, they were not simply a showcase of creativity. They were evidence that structured idea challenges can be a powerful way for governments to strengthen belief in how they operate.

As López Egaña puts it, “Transparency was at the core of everything we did. And that helped us break the logic of distrust toward government."