National Cradle to Career Network grows to 61 partnerships from 31 states and Washington, D.C.
Cincinnati, Ohio — StriveTogether announced today the addition of eight new community partnerships to its Cradle to Career Network. The national collective impact initiative now includes 61 community partnerships from 31 states and Washington, D.C, all working to connect cross-sector leaders to improve education outcomes for kids.
New community partnerships include:
- Baltimore’s Promise in Baltimore, Md.
- Bold Goals Coalition in Birmingham, Ala.
- Eastern Ohio Education Partnership in Warren, Ohio
- The Learning Network in Kalamazoo, Mich.
- Lenawee Cradle to Career in Lenawee County, Mich.
- Promise Partnerships in Salt Lake City, Utah
- RGV Focus in Rio Grande Valley, Texas
- Success of all Youth in Oak Park and River Forest, Ill.
These local community organizations are the newest community partnerships to join the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network, which connects more than 9,150 organizations and impacts over 5.9 million students.
“The Cradle to Career Network continues to grow and gain momentum across the country,” StriveTogether Managing Director Jeff Edmondson said. “Each community, and the Network as a whole, is committed to impacting student outcomes, while putting children at the center of their work. We welcome these partnerships and look forward to them joining with other Cradle to Career Network members to identify concrete ways to achieve collective impact.”
StriveTogether supports Network communities with resources and a nationally recognized collective impact approach, known as the StriveTogether Theory of Action. Collective impact has emerged as a successful way for communities to align resources around shared outcomes throughout the education continuum, such as kindergarten readiness, early grade reading and post-secondary completion.
Network members connect with each other to share knowledge to help progress their work, learning form the successes, failures and insights of each cradle to career partnership.
To become a Network member, community partnerships must meet a set of benchmarks that indicate it has engaged a cross-sector group around a common education vision. The partnership must also demonstrate it can support the creation of a sustainable infrastructure to drive change, and commit to being accountable for improving an identified set of academic outcomes.
About StriveTogether
StriveTogether works with communities nationwide to help them create a civic infrastructure that unites stakeholders around shared goals, measures and results in education, supporting the success of every child, cradle to career. Communities implementing the StriveTogether framework have seen dramatic improvements in kindergarten readiness, standardized test results and college retention.