About Global Goals at Home

This Initiative:

Catalogues holistic progress across Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia in achieving the 17 United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) by localizing UN indicators as proxy measures at the state, county/ward, and Congressional District level
Identifies local stakeholder groups and policy recommendations that advance the SDGs
Includes a coalition of direct service providers, thought leaders, policymakers, educators, and civilians working together to advance sustainable development in the National Capital Area.

The innovative methodology serves as an organizing principle + framing mechanism to catalyze lasting, equitable change through comprehensive yet localized benchmarks of progress.

The Need

Organizations face numerous challenges in tracking and understanding the problems in their communities:

Work surrounding the advancement of human rights and universal dignity rarely has the capacity to be interdisciplinary
Organizations often work independently; in order for sustainable, inclusive policy change to occur there is a need to connect direct service providers with researchers, additional resources, and legislators
Relevant data is difficult to access; there is no consolidated library across interdisciplinary factors and there are significant data gaps

The Opportunity

The SDGs offer a global agenda for critical transformation
The SDGs provide a necessary framework to collaborate across stakeholders – but they measure progress using benchmarks that do not capture the reality of inequality and critical need in the United States
Therefore, there is an opportunity for more effective change if this framework is used through a more localized approach

Our Progress

The Global Goals at Home project creates an interactive online dashboard that fills gaps in data and documents quantitative + qualitative progress towards the SDGs across DC, MD, and VA
Awarded First Prize ($2000) in an international “Pioneers in the SDGs” competition hosted by the Journalists and Writers Foundation for the UNGA Conference; Awarded First Prize ($500) in a national “SDG Service Pitch Competition” sponsored by the United Nations Foundation and Colgate.
The Dashboard will launch in October.

Our Ask

This project is entirely volunteer-driven; We need the resources to:

Develop an implementation guide for enterprises to define how this methodology can validate and expand local impact evaluation for CSR and ESG
Develop an implementation guide for all 200 UNA chapters across the country to replicate this methodology within their own jurisdictions
Support our research staff, including the college student who is single-handedly building the online dashboard
Expand research and engagement with Maryland and Virginia municipalities

SDG Fund

By United Nations Association of the National Capital Area

SDG Fund

Ongoing fundraising campaign for the Global Goals at Home project.