Collective impact has been one of the biggest buzzwords in the social sector, and, unfortunately, the term gets used for a range of activities that deviate from the original intent: achieving results at scale. Our focus with the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network has been to establish standards for what this work really takes to…
While facilitating a planning session with a group of communities as part of the Corridors of College Success Initiative, Luzelma Canales of the RGV Focus partnership in Rio Grande Valley made a profound summary statement that captured the heart of their work: “We see what we do as making sure success — graduating from college — happens by…
As communities across the country engage in collective impact generally and the work of building cradle-to-career civic infrastructure specifically, one of the first issues that always comes up is stress and tension around the selection of a “backbone organization.” This is a core component of the work that Kania and Kramer lifted up in the…
We have the honor of working with communities all over the country looking embrace the concept of collective impact and establish cradle-to-career civic infrastructure to achieve better outcomes for children. Unfortunately, the energy around this work has led to a new political challenge in many communities: jockeying among partners to become the backbone[1]. In one…
This blog post is from the StriveTogether archives. Learn more about our approach to collective impact here >> We recently hit the benchmarks of having over 150 communities reach out to us and 80 communities having completed the Site Readiness Assessment to join the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network. As we start our discussions…