2025 annual report

Across the country, states in the Cradle to Career Network are showing what becomes possible when communities and public agencies work together to advance policies. In 2025, state policy coalitions played a defining role in translating legislation into action, elevating community voice and strengthening the systems required to ensure public investments reached children and families.

This work reflects StriveTogether’s policy approach, which recognizes that policy change does not end with passage. To ensure enacted policies achieve results, effective implementation is required — grounded in coordination across agencies, shared accountability and local capacity to adapt policy to real community contexts.

Seven states participate in StriveTogether’s Policy Implementation Community of Practice. These coalitions worked alongside state partners to influence policy from design through delivery, addressing common implementation barriers such as unclear requirements, limited local capacity and fragmented data systems.

To support this work, StriveTogether co-leads the Community of Practice with the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s EdRedesign Lab. The Community of Practice brings state and local leaders together to build shared implementation practices, solve challenges and learn across policy contexts. Through a year-long learning arc focused on rulemaking, rollout and scaling, participating states strengthened their ability to coordinate implementation and sustain impact over time.

Coalition leadership is evident in how states are carrying forward major policy efforts. In California, the state coalition partnered with the Department of Social Services to co-design the rollout of new Promise Neighborhood investments. Together, they developed work plans, reporting tools and evaluation approaches before funds were distributed, reducing confusion and strengthening implementation readiness. The coalition also guided $1.5 million in administrative funding toward evaluation, technical assistance and communications, building the infrastructure needed to support consistent delivery across communities.

In Tennessee, the Opportunity Act redistributed Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars based on child poverty rates and funded eight three-year, two-generation pilot programs. As the state shifted from policy design to delivery, the state coalition helped counties interpret requirements and coordinate across agencies, improving how resources were allocated and supporting more equitable uptake across communities with varying levels of capacity.

In Texas, coalition leadership supported implementation at scale as the Teacher Incentive Allotment expanded by more than $350 million and added new teacher designations. The state coalition helped districts understand evaluation metrics, align timelines and prepare for rollout. It also supported House Bill 8’s community college reforms and the expansion of no-cost dual credit for students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. This coordination helped align K-12, postsecondary and workforce systems, reducing fragmentation during a period of rapid policy change.

Across these states, coalitions strengthened public systems by coordinating across agencies, elevating community insight and building local capacity for effective implementation. Policy alone does not change systems — people and partnerships do.

By bringing agencies and community partners together, state coalitions translate policy into meaningful change and laid the foundation to scale what works and advance economic mobility. Through the Cradle to Career Network and opportunities like the Community of Practice, StriveTogether supports this work with shared measurement, learning and capacity building, recognizing that systems change depends on people and partnerships, not policy alone.

State leaders from Washington, California, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Maryland and Minnesota convene in Atlanta for the Policy Implementation Community of Practice State Leadership Summit.

The Training Hub Powered by StriveTogether strengthens the skills that community leaders need to advance cradle-to-career partnerships across the country.

As cradle-to-career, place-based partnerships address complex challenges, leaders need the tools to convene across sectors, align systems and translate collaboration into measurable outcomes. This year, the Training Hub scaled those competencies through national partnerships, delivering more than half of its training hours to leaders outside the Cradle to Career Network (52%, or 3,987 hours), while 39% (3,017 hours) supported network members. The remainder strengthened StriveTogether’s internal capacity to support the field.

In 2025, the Training Hub reached an important milestone in its national partner work through a collaboration with the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s EdRedesign Lab. Together with other national intermediaries — including Partners for Rural Impact, Purpose Built Communities and the William Julius Wilson Institute at Harlem Children’s Zone — StriveTogether helped launch the EdRedesign Fellowship for Cradle-to-Career Partnership Leaders, a first-of-its-kind, tuition-free program for new and emerging leaders of cradle-to-career partnerships.

“The partnership with Harvard EdRedesign strengthens the Training Hub’s ability to prepare leaders for the real work of systems change by supporting people to convene partners across sectors, align strategies and turn shared goals into results,” said Heidi Black, StriveTogether’s vice president of training. “It has allowed us to add another building block as we work to create the infrastructure that leaders in the cradle-to-career field need to succeed.”

The fellowship addresses a critical need in the field: preparing leaders to guide complex cross-sector efforts while centering community expertise and lived experience. The inaugural cohort includes 21 fellows from 15 states, representing urban, rural and suburban communities as well as neighborhood, county and regional partnerships. Fellows bring diverse perspectives from national models such as Promise Neighborhoods, Full-Service Community Schools, Communities In Schools, Blue Meridian Partners’ Place Matters initiative and several StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network communities.

Over 18 months, fellows strengthened leadership and collaborative improvement skills and applied these lessons through real-world examples. The curriculum equipped fellows to align partners around shared goals and navigate challenging conversations.

This summer’s fellowship sessions demonstrated the importance of aligning national partners around a shared framework for systems change. The Training Hub shaped content and competencies, ensuring consistency across learning experiences while honoring the unique contexts of each fellow’s work.

Looking ahead, StriveTogether will continue to expand the reach of the Training Hub through deeper national partnerships and the launch of a refreshed certification pathway. This next phase will provide clearer learning milestones for individuals and organizations while further strengthening the field’s capacity to deliver results.

By scaling competencies through the Training Hub and partnering with organizations like Harvard EdRedesign, StriveTogether is helping ensure that more communities have the leadership and infrastructure needed to turn collaboration into lasting impact.