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Using Collective Impact to Drive Greater Postsecondary and Career Success

Author: Dan Duncan | Year of Publication: 2021

Promise Neighborhoods is a cradle-to-career initiative dedicated to building supports that can help ensure educational and career success for all neighborhood youth. One of the program’s goals is to make sure high school graduates obtain a postsecondary degree, certificate, or credential. This brief offers five collective impact strategies for Promise Neighborhood grantees to drive greater postsecondary results:

  1. Focus on building a movement in the neighborhood for postsecondary and career success, not just a better service system.
  2. Develop a common purpose for action related to postsecondary and career success based on the experiences of the youth and families in the neighborhood and their hopes and dreams.
  3. Build the relationships and trust necessary to achieve greater postsecondary results.
  4. Ensure families, neighbors, and youth are engaged as coproducers of postsecondary results and not just the objects of the work.
  5. Build a commitment to data and accountability, and use those data to learn and evolve at the neighborhood level to achieve greater postsecondary impact and results.

Promise Neighborhoods grantees and other organizations focused on postsecondary success will find tools and resources in this brief, including guiding principles, ideas for potential partners, and steps for getting started.

View the brief on the Urban website

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