Last summer, Brooks toured the country, visiting communities enriched by what he calls “weavers” — individuals and organizations creating trusting relationships to repair the frayed social fabric seen in the ways we ignore our neighbors or separate ourselves by our differences.

Collective impact aims to strengthen this fabric. Brooks got his first look at the StriveTogether brand of collective impact when visiting the Spartanburg Academic Movement, where he was touched by the way community-based partnerships were connected to serve the community’s children. He chronicled his discovery in a column aptly titled “A really good thing happening in America.”

At the convening, Brooks pulled forward his experience in South Carolina in his remarks and the panel discussion that followed. The panel was moderated by Jim Shelton, the former deputy secretary of education who coined the Cradle to Career Network’s term “proof point.” Shelton opened with a line from the column that crystalized one Brooks’ primary lessons from his Spartanburg visit: “Trust is built and the social fabric is repaired when people form local relationships around shared tasks.”

One by one, panelists described the examples of weavers working on these tasks in each of their communities:

• For Abdi Iftin and Amy Tehrens Terpstra at United Way of Salt Lake, weavers are the 565 volunteers in the community who donated school supplies for students, and the young people who work as grassroots connectors for parents and families across a range of immigrant experiences.
• Keith Lovelace of New York City’s Community School 61 and Michael Partis of South Bronx Rising Together spoke of the elders who make multiple visits to schools each week to read to students, alongside former students who return as volunteers.
• Elyse Peters and Shardé Oliver at Bold Goals Coalition of Central Alabama described how colleagues in rural Alabama build trust by sharing their local context, weaving partners into the community fabric.

These and other examples shared illustrate communities creating connections through meaningful relationships and appreciation of place. Such stories of relationships can often be overshadowed by leaders’ drive to achieve results. Brooks reminded audience members that as they navigate challenges back home, it is their relationships that will sustain the work. Relationship building is a skill, Brooks said.

“We all say we want to be good at relationship, but the people who are really good at it have gone through some sort of metamorphosis,” he shared.

This metamorphosis is a narrative that Brooks has experienced in his own life, which he explained using StriveTogether’s name. Of the words “Strive” and “Together,” Brooks says he’s always been better at the first. He was a striver from an early age who chose his profession of writing after reading about Paddington Bear as a child. His journalism studies have led him to a career of achievement, with multiple books and a regular column in one of the country’s most prominent periodicals. But as his career progressed, Brooks found himself mostly alone, falling into a personal valley caused by a “lack of togetherness.” His charge to the audience was to remember the second part of StriveTogether’s name.

As an organization, StriveTogether too has seen metamorphosis, beginning as a network of like-minded partnerships creating collective impact in more than 100 communities. After an update to our theory of action added rigor to our framework, many communities left the Cradle to Career Network. Since then, the network has strived plenty, with a total of 13 proof point communities and an ambitious goal of 24 communities reaching systems transformation by 2023. But deep in the data lies something else — the strength of the community connectivity that has made it all possible.

Today, nearly 70 StriveTogether network members nationwide are creating relationships across sector, across difference and across the railroad tracks with a deep commitment to equity and closing disparities. As collective impact leaders, we are relationship builders first, and as we continue to learn and grow as a network, we take a note from David Brooks, who, as Jim Shelton noted, has not only the courage to change, but the courage to do it in public. And if individuals can change, culture can change, systems can change, and we can all keep striving — together.

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This policy win comes after five years spent on the issue by Mission: Graduate, a Cradle to Career Network member in Albuquerque.In partnership with a state representative, Mission: Graduate helped to draft the legislation, served as an expert witness during a legislative session and worked with executive and legislative staff to improve the bill to ensure passage.

“Our efforts finally paid off in a big way,” said Angelo Gonzales, chief strategy officer at United Way of Central New Mexico, which supports Mission: Graduate.“We are excited about the new changes to state law, and we are already planning to work with the New Mexico Public Education Department to help schools and districts understand what this will mean for them practically.”

The law proposes that all schools collect and report chronic absence data, using the 10 percent threshold recommended by Attendance Works. Schools with chronic absence rates higher than a certain threshold will have to create attendance improvement plans. These are all practices that came from Mission: Graduate partners testing strategies with over 40 school-based teams over the last two years.

“The factors involving chronic absenteeism manifest through lack of communication, awareness and collaboration,” said Rep. Patricio Ruiloba, a state legislator from Albuquerque’s South Valley. “Families, students and staff are the school-based resources and can work together to navigate the social issues, fear and conflicts occurring in our schools. Remove these barriers, and have real communication and reduced consequences.”

Here are some key insights learned by Mission: Graduate during this work:

• • Support your position with research. In 2018, Mission: Graduate released a research brief on chronic absence, with causes, data and evidence, and policy recommendations. The research brief made clear what they needed in Albuquerque — a positive, diverse and inclusive school climate where all students feel they can belong. The policy recommendations were based on proven strategies from over 40 school-based teams.
  • Find a legislator who shares your cause. Ruiloba had also been working to convince his colleagues to make chronic absence a priority. A former police officer, he leads restorative justice work in schools and sees the impact of missed class time on students every day. Ruiloba invited Gonzales as an expert witness to present findings with the Legislative Education Study Committee. Gonzales highlighted Mission: Graduate’s Every Day Matters campaign, identified potential gaps in current law and made data-informed recommendations.
  • If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Ruiloba’s first bill to address chronic absence did not make it to the governor last year. Once the 2018 session was over, he and Gonzales began meeting immediately to improve language, share data and provide community voice. When legislators returned for the 2019 session, the Attendance for Success Act, sponsored by Ruiloba, sailed through both the House and the Senate.

“This is a probably the single greatest accomplishment of my time with Mission: Graduate,” Gonzales said. “We are all very excited about this first venture into public policy, and I’m hopeful that this is just the beginning of what we can achieve in the policy domain.”

To read more about this policy win, view the full case study at this link.

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The announcement was made at the conclusion of Steve Ballmer’s morning plenary remarks in front of more than 400 community leaders representing local community-based partnerships across the country. The investment includes $10 million per year over the next six years to create a challenge fund to accelerate partner progress, as well as funding to propel the StriveTogether’s new strategic plan.

The investment does not come lightly, as Steve demonstrated this morning. He described the decision within the context of a 15-year journey, spearheaded in part by Connie Ballmer, whose early philanthropic work focused on improving systems that support foster children. Upon Steve’s retirement from his position as CEO of Microsoft three years ago, Steve and Connie have focused their philanthropic efforts on the idea that every child born in the U.S. deserves an opportunity to access the American dream.

Together, they explored the most impactful role that philanthropy could play to improve economic mobility for children and families. Steve and Connie decided to pursue partnerships with government at all levels to promote the most effective use of tax dollars to help children and families, as well as support efforts to increase the use of data and technology to drive decision making and improve outcomes at the local, state and national levels. Although philanthropy will never match the federal government’s $1.3 trillion in funding for economic mobility for families, it can play a supporting role by taking risks on new approaches and encouraging innovation.

They discovered the critical role of “whole child health” and the negative impact of adverse childhood experiences — factors like abuse, domestic violence and the loss of a parent — on a child’s future economic trajectory. And they learned about the way that community-based partnerships like the StriveTogether national network can work to not only improve educational outcomes but open access to broader opportunity for every child, cradle to career.

Reflecting on 10 site visits to StriveTogether communities, Steve Ballmer commended the work of the Network saying, “There are a few other organizations out there that do this work, but no one with the same capacity as StriveTogether.”

In his opinion, the progress has been due in part to the 360-degree view of a child’s development that the Network has taken, building community partnerships with parents and families, business and faith institutions, P-12 and community colleges, health providers and other nonprofits to mobilize whole communities around all stages of child development. He quipped, “It’s the community, stupid,” as he highlighted the fact that only a community can solve a community’s problems, and the work to facilitate and steward these local partnerships is an essential lever of change in the lives of children.

He ended his remarks by pointing out a few elements of the strategic plan including:

• Technology and the ability to take advancements to scale
• Policy and advocacy, to engage elected leaders with placed-based approaches that work to remove barriers for children
• Leadership and talent, and the potential to build a pipeline and career path to attract human capital
• Narrative and brand, to communicate the work and better engage the social services sector and other partners

This investment will fund StriveTogether’s new and ambitious comprehensive plan to improve outcomes and reduce racial and socioeconomic disparities in communities across the country. The strategic plan launch was formally announced Monday, October 2.

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