Case Study: City of Atlanta achieves $7.1M in potential annual savings with IdeaScale

City of Atlanta Saving Millions of Dollars Annually

The City of Atlanta launched CityIdeas in August 2013, a citywide employee innovation challenge hosted on IdeaScale to crowdsource practical ways to reduce waste, cut red tape and lower operating costs. A targeted promotional campaign — including a launch event, citywide emails, intranet links, posters and paper submissions — encouraged broad participation across departments.

Submissions were vetted by department heads, an interdepartmental evaluation committee and final decision-makers (COO and Mayor), with winning ideas receiving implementation funding and monetary awards. The program drew 700 participants and 370 ideas across 17 departments, identified six top proposals that could save the city millions (the top three alone projected $7.1M annually), boosted employee morale and produced implementable ideas such as inmate-led property cleanup, pay‑as‑you‑throw waste management and citywide e‑records.

City of Atlanta

Kristin Canavan Wilson

Deputy Chief Operating Officer