Strive Endorsement Process - Priority Strategies

Priority Strategies

Strive's priority strategies are wrapped around the issues identified by the community-at-large as being the most critical towards moving the educational needle of our region. Because the enormous scope of Strive’s work spans birth through college or career training, Strive uses a combination of five criteria to prioritize educational strategies to effect the most positive change in the shortest amount of time.

  1. Community Will 
    Gathering input from the community is a large focus of Strive’s ongoing work. Strive has reviewed the wealth of existing community focus group data spanning the last five years from hundreds of local nonprofits, conducting dozens of community forums, implemented surveys and conducted multiple focus groups. Future outreach efforts are built into Strive’s community engagement strategy.
  2. Professional Judgment 
    In Strive's quest to incorporate professional judgment into the initiative, Strive interviewed not only agencies providing services to kids but educators and corporate professionals as well. The years of combined experience they shared yielded some interesting insights on how to improve education.
  3. Existing Data 
    Although many nonprofits currently don’t have the resources to collect the investment-grade data that corporations and other funders want to see, the information they do collect provides a starting point to build a comprehensive data system.
  4. Political Will 
    Any successful initiative has the backing of strong civic leadership. Since education is often in the political forefront as a means of economic development to create a higher quality of living, political will around certain issues is natural and crucial to sustaining momentum.
  5. Existing Capacity
    The resources of most nonprofits are simply not rich enough to accomplish the impact needed to create a region filled with successful students. However, when working collaboratively, networks of providers with similar missions (called Strive Students Success Networks or SSNs) are able to pool resources and talent around the strategies that best serve kids. They also work together to collect data continuously to confirm that these strategies are the most efficient and effective.

Please visit our home page and click on the goals listed within the puzzle pieces to learn more about priority strategies currently underway.