Executive Summary
In 2024, Cook County launched the Policy Roadmap 2024-2027, a strategic plan documenting our goals and charting the path for the next four years. This is the second Policy Roadmap, the first having been published in 2018. As outlined in the first Policy Roadmap, this plan is a policy-driven, strategic approach that aligns the work of the Cook County Offices Under the President (OUP) in six priority areas: health and wellness, economic and community development, safety and justice, climate resiliency, public infrastructure and technology and good government. OUP has launched numerous initiatives in line with the original plan while adapting and responding to significant, emerging needs, such as a once-in-alifetime pandemic, the ever-growing climate crisis and current unprecedented attacks on our immigrant communities from the federal administration. Building on its internal work to operationalize equity across communities and geographic lines, the Cook County Equity Fund, created in 2021, established a budgeting vehicle with dedicated revenues, and launched a portfolio of meaningful systems-change
efforts to drive access, equity and opportunity.
This report captures implementation progress for the second year of the Policy Roadmap. In line with the Policy Roadmap’s goal to fold varied streams of reporting under its umbrella, this report also includes a progress update on the Equity Fund. This report includes spotlights of various initiatives and programs across all six of our priority areas, providing just a glance of the vast amount of work being done across the County.
In 2025, Cook County OUP made significant progress on driving forward work outlined in the Policy Roadmap, most notably with the first-ever Regional Behavioral Health Strategic Plan through Healthy Communities, Cook County Legal Aid for Housing and Debt (CCLAHD) program through Vital Communities, Government Alliance for Safe Communities (GASC) through Safe & Thriving Communities, Businesses Reducing Impact on the Environment (BRITE) program through Sustainable Communities, Access Pilot Program through Connected Communities and updating the public resources for nonEnglish speakers on the County’s immigration website through Open Communities.
The Equity Fund also made significant progress in 2025, launching key initiatives such as the Participatory Budgeting Pilot, Impacted Members Initiative, and Policy Pillar Working Groups to advance enhanced engagement with internal and external partners. Departmental efforts continued to drive system-level change across the County’s six policy priority areas. The Equity Fund addendum in this report provides high-level summaries of these initiatives, and programmatic updates on the 26 recommendations being implemented by County departments, bureaus and partners.
Additionally, in 2025, Cook County was honored with 78 National Association of Counties (NACo) awards, highlighting how the effective, innovative government programs guided by the Policy Roadmap and Equity Fund respond to critical needs across communities.