Measuring civic infrastructure development: Reflections from the StriveTogether evaluation

Guest post by Justin Piff, a senior director at Equal Measure in Philadelphia, Penn. Despite national and international attention on collective impact since 2011, few individuals and institutions have articulated what it looks like or ought to look like in practice. In 2015, Equal Measure and StriveTogether set out to understand how civic infrastructure —…

From ‘dropout factories’ to record-high graduation in Tacoma, Washington

Guest post by Eric Wilson, president and CEO of Graduate Tacoma, a StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network community partnership in Tacoma, Wash. In 2010, just more than half of Tacoma students were graduating. Front-page headlines in USA Today pronounced Tacoma schools “dropout factories.” The incoming superintendent declared the 55 percent graduation rate “shameful” for the 30,000-student school district. That…

Mentoring Toward Success in Central Texas

Guest post by Joshua Childs of the University of Texas at Austin; Ty Davidson of Travis Early College High School; and Sonia Dominguez of E3 Alliance, a StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network community. Communities across the country, from Pittsburgh to Oakland, are working every day to improve student attendance, but addressing complex educational issues often can…

Checking the foundation for collective impact

Adriane Johnson-Williams, founding facilitator for the Seeding Success partnership in Memphis, Tenn., is exploring what it looks like to truly do the work of collaborative action. Through stories of challenging conversations and genuine relationship building, she shares her experiences working to change behaviors and practices in pursuit of better and more equitable outcomes at scale.…

Not just old wine in new bottles

Adriane Johnson-Williams, founding facilitator for the Seeding Success partnership in Memphis, Tenn., is exploring what it looks like to truly do the work of collaborative action. Through stories of challenging conversations and genuine relationship building, she shares her experiences working to change behaviors and practices in pursuit of better and more equitable outcomes at scale.…

This change was made for you and me

Guest post by Juliette Price, director of The Albany Promise, a StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network partnership. Communities and individuals, from California to New York, are working every day to change adult behavior to improve the outcomes for our nation’s most vulnerable students. But this work can be lonely. At this year’s StriveTogether Expert Convening,…

Trust is (also) an action

Adriane Johnson-Williams, founding facilitator for the Seeding Success partnership in Memphis, Tenn., is exploring what it looks like to truly do the work of collaborative action. Through stories of challenging conversations and genuine relationship building, she shares her experiences working to change behaviors and practices in pursuit of better and more equitable outcomes at scale.…