Evansville Promise Neighborhood: Power in Partnerships

Written by: Harper McCall and Amanda Hare | Published: 05/13/2025

Power in Persistence

In 2020, community leaders recognized critical opportunities to strengthen outcomes for Evansville’s children and families, particularly in the areas of postsecondary education access, student safety, and food security. United by a shared vision for change, the University of Evansville applied to the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program. Promise Neighborhoods is a holistic effort to improve economic stability in communities like Evansville by investing in the well-being of children. Promise Neighborhoods projects seek to foster a cradle-to-career network of robust, comprehensive local support programs for children and their families, with great schools at the center.

Although the team’s 2020 bid for Promise Neighborhoods funding was unsuccessful, they did not give up. The team regrouped, forging relationships with nonprofits and other community organizations to strengthen their application. These leaders began identifying modes to engage with one another and work toward uplifting the Evansville community. After many conversations and intensive strategic planning, the University of Evansville and 22 community partners submitted a new application for Promise Neighborhoods funding in 2022. And this time, they were successful.

Embracing Collaboration for Collective Impact

Although receiving the 5-year grant was a significant milestone, the Evansville Promise Neighborhood quickly realized that the U.S. Department of Education funding alone would not be enough to achieve its ambitious goals. The partners would need to collaborate to diversify resources to sustain their impact.

The Evansville area has a long history of dedicated nonprofits, each making a meaningful impact, often through smaller collaborations or independent efforts. Although the idea of collective impact deeply resonated within the community, a unified framework to align these efforts had not yet fully taken shape. The Evansville Promise Neighborhood created the opportunity to bring these organizations together, establishing a shared framework for collaboration. From the outset, the Evansville Promise Neighborhood team recognized the need to establish a solid foundation for long-term impact, ensuring the work could be sustained beyond the 5-year grant period.

Streamlining Services: Identifying Overlaps and Gaps

Because the Evansville area had many nonprofits with similar missions, the Evansville Promise Neighborhood All Partner Meeting identified overlapping services and opportunities to strengthen support. The collaboration between the Evansville Promise Neighborhood partners Pre To 3 and Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library (EVPL) is one example of what is possible when partners align to identify—and address—opportunities to expand literacy support services.

This collaboration began when the Evansville Promise Neighborhood partner Vanderburgh County Health Department learned about the discrepancies in reading proficiency between students in the Promise Neighborhood footprint and students in Indiana. While 81 percent of Indiana third-graders demonstrated proficient reading skills on the assessment in 2020–2021, only 54 percent of Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation students living in the Evansville Promise Neighborhood footprint¹ achieved the same benchmark. Strengthening literacy support services could help reduce these discrepancies, so the Vanderburgh County Health Department looked for potential ways to help.

One strategy was to help the families the department serves obtain library cards through the Pre To 3 program, a home-visiting program for expectant mothers in the Evansville area. This task did not turn out to be as easy as it sounds. Pre To 3 identified a common barrier that prevented many families from taking advantage of EVPL’s literacy support services—a permanent address. Many families experiencing homelessness or transience cannot provide the proof of residence required for a library card. Thanks to the partnerships forged through the Evansville Promise Neighborhood, Pre To 3 collaborated with EVPL to identify a solution for this gap in services. EVPL created a form that Pre To 3 could complete to help families without proof of residence obtain a library card and, in turn, benefit from the literacy support services EVPL offers.

Pre To 3 built on this success with a multipronged strategy to create book-rich environments for young children. It partnered with EVPL to distribute Baby Explore Bundles to all infants under age 1, providing materials to encourage families to explore books and language together. In addition to a one-time-use library card and access to sign up for a full library card, the bundles include multisensory “Storytime To Go” materials, registration and materials for EVPL’s “1,000 Books Before Kindergarten” program, and an activity flipbook of songs and rhymes. By April 2025, Pre To 3 and EVPL had given out 90 Baby Explore Bundles. Finally, Pre To 3 updated its home-visit protocol to include signing all families up to receive free, high-quality books through the Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provided by the Evansville Promise Neighborhood partner United Way of Southwestern Indiana.

A Collaborative Approach to Family Support

April Graham, a resident of the Evansville Promise Neighborhood, set a goal for herself. A decade after dropping out of high school, she worked the night shift cleaning at the local bank. However, April wanted to return to school and obtain her GED certificate. Although she was just 11 credits shy of her certificate, as the parent of two children under the age of 5, she saw balancing motherhood and her desire to continue her education as a huge hurdle. Everything changed for April when she discovered a collaboration between Goodwill Industries, Inc.’s The Excel Center and Building Blocks, two partners of the Evansville Promise Neighborhood. This partnership seeks to help individuals like April complete their high school education while offering free child care services.

Grand opening at Goodwill's The Excel Center. Source: The Excel Center

Although the Evansville Promise Neighborhood’s 2023 high school graduation rate mirrored the state average (88 and 89 percent, respectively), the team recognized an opportunity to support the 12 percent of students not graduating within 4 years and other adults seeking their high school diplomas. Rooted in evidence-based adult learning practices, The Excel Center is an Evansville Promise Neighborhood partner that offers adults access to free, flexible courses to earn a high school diploma and provides support, guidance, and opportunities beyond graduation. From the outset, its leaders recognized that successfully supporting adult learners would require more than just academic instruction; it would mean addressing barriers like child care. With funding to build an onsite child care center, The Excel Center provided student-parents peace of mind knowing that their children are in a safe place, just down the hall, at no cost.

Building Blocks, another Evansville Promise Neighborhood partner, shared important expertise and evidence-based practices to create the new child care center. As a leading voice for improving the accessibility, affordability, and quality of child care, Building Blocks knew simply offering child care was not enough—ensuring a high-quality early learning environment would make a lasting difference for both children and families. The Excel Center and Building Blocks partnered to design the Little Scholars Center, transforming it into an enriching, developmentally appropriate space that meets the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale guidelines and state licensing regulations.

Student-parents like April quickly recognized the power of this collaboration. Multigenerational support provided through the partnership has helped many create better lives for themselves and their children at the same time. In August of 2024, April began her journey taking classes at The Excel Center while her children thrived in the Little Scholars program, where they had access to books, educational toys, and new friends.

Maximizing Funding Potential

One of the key challenges Promise Neighborhoods grantees face is ensuring their work can be sustained beyond the 5-year grant period. Strong partnerships can pave the road to sustainability by working together to strategically leverage funding opportunities.

One example is a recent collaboration between the Dream Center and Community One, two nonprofits with shared objectives. The Dream Center is a faith-based organization that offers afterschool programs, summer day camps, wraparound care, academic development, school integration, and neighborhood revitalization services. Community One seeks to connect and mobilize people from every corner of the community to serve one another through tangible acts of love.

When Community One obtained the American Rescue Plan Act relief funding to revitalize homes in the community, the organization reached out to the Dream Center to help make the most of every dollar. The funding allowed the Dream Center to complete much-needed construction projects, such as building accessible ramps and fixing roofs, for the families it was already serving.

Evansville Promise Neighborhood partners working toward community revitalization. Source: Evansville Promise Neighborhood

Turning the Page in Evansville

Through the Evansville Promise Neighborhood’s partnerships, individuals like April Graham have a success story to share. In spring 2025, April graduated from The Excel Center with her high school diploma. She has now set her sights on earning a degree from a local community college so she can one day work in addiction studies and make a difference in the lives of others in the Evansville community. Although traditional data points may not fully capture it, April’s journey to this important achievement outside the typical high school pathway offers a glimpse into the individual impact and community momentum created by the Evansville Promise Neighborhood.

Excel Center student April Graham with her children, Little Scholars Center students. Source: April Graham

Meanwhile, Evansville Promise Neighborhood’s story is also beginning a new chapter. The grantee recently started new partner recruitment efforts to build on its existing network and has seen an overwhelmingly positive response, with many new organizations ready to get involved. Through these partnerships, both new and old, Evansville will continue improving the lives and outcomes for its community members. April is just one of the many community members the Evansville Promise Neighborhood has touched, but her story speaks to a larger theme: the power in partnerships. As the Evansville Promise Neighborhood and its 22 partners work together to support individuals from cradle to career, April and many others within the footprint are receiving the support necessary to change their life’s trajectory.