Ben Warner is president and chief executive officer of Jacksonville Community Council Inc., a nonpartisan civic "think-and-do tank" that engages residents dialogue, research and leadership development to improve the quality of life in Jacksonville.
The work he directs serves as a model and a consultant for cities throughout the world.
It has been engaged for the past several years in the global "Beyond GDP" initiative, aimed at developing new indicators for progress, inclusive of environmental and social factors that can be applied to all nations.
Locally, the organization has been busy facilitating the JAX2025 visioning initiative for preserving and improving the city. This is a similar effort to the San Antonio community-visioning exercise, SA2020, which JCCI helped facilitate several years ago.
Warner said JCCI's main role is to "elevate the work of other organizations in order to reach the goals" determined by the vision.
"Our work is traditionally behind the scenes and that is intentional," said Warner.
JCCI has seven full-time employees and, at any given time, hundreds of volunteers organizing and implementing projects.
"We decided a long time ago that we could either get something done or be visibly successful – it's hard to do both," he said.
"We spend the majority of our time consensus-building and facilitating the communication process to help change happen," he said.
Warner has been with JCCI since 1998 and succeeded retired President and CEO Skip Cramer for the leadership role Sept. 1, 2011.
Warner said during his tenure he has been focused on rebranding and reinvigorating the organization, including its use of technology.
"We have worked on telling the story differently and changing the language we speak. The point is not to present data; the point is to use the data to start a conversation," he said.
"What excites me most about our work is the impact it has on the community. The concept of people coming together to make a difference is as old as America itself — many great things in Jacksonville have started that way."
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