Results by Term: Brief
Keeping a Promise: Case Studies and Annotated Resources for Promise Neighborhoods Sustainability
Author: Megan Gallagher, Emma Fernandez, and Ariella Meltzer | Year of Publication: 2024
This brief describes the Promise Neighborhoods program, its grantees, and their approaches to sustainability and includes case studies that present some of these approaches. It also provides a list of resources for sustainability planning.<br />Note: Initially published in March 2024, the brief was revised in April 2024 to update details about California Promise Neighborhood Network’s policy advocacy work.
Making the Case for Promise Neighborhoods
Author: Megan Gallagher, Lori Nathanson, Peter Tatian, and Jarle Crocker | Year of Publication: 2024
This brief highlights Promise Neighborhoods’ 10-year history and vision for the future. Illustrative stories from Mission Promise Neighborhood, Partners for Rural Impact, and South Ward Promise Neighborhood are featured.
COVID-19 Response and Recovery in Promise Neighborhoods 2020-2022
Author: Jillian Spindle and Lori Nathanson | Year of Publication: 2023
A Promise Neighborhood is a place-based, collective impact approach to improving results for children and families. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Promise Neighborhoods were uniquely positioned to provide on-the-ground community response. They were partners to government, philanthropies, businesses, and community institutions in reaching students, parents, and neighbors with essential emergency services and vital information. This paper explores Promise Neighborhoods’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrates that investing in Promise Neighborhoods produces more than academic results; it ensures critical community infrastructure is available during times of crisis.
Expanding Data Use to Support More Effective Post-High School Transitions: Measuring Postsecondary Success in Promise Neighborhoods
Author: Sonia Torres Rodríguez and Elizabeth Burton | Year of Publication: 2022
This brief focuses on Promise Neighborhood grantees that collect and report data on high school graduates who obtain a postsecondary degree, certification, or credential. It also explores strategies to assess the employment outcomes of youth in Promise Neighborhoods. The brief includes guidance and best practices on expanding data use and capacity for Promise Neighborhood grantees and peers to improve their measurement of postsecondary engagement and success.
Building the Cradle in a Cradle-to-Career Initiative: Three Opportunities for Promise Neighborhoods to Promote Kindergarten Readiness
Author: Megan Gallagher and Shubhangi Kumari | Year of Publication: 2022
Early care and education (ECE) programs are crucial for positive educational and developmental outcomes of children. This brief provides a framework to support Promise Neighborhoods’ ECE work, specifically preparing young children for school in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Promise Neighborhoods as a Platform for Advancing Racial Equity
Author: Anand Sharma | Year of Publication: 2021
Leaders of Promise Neighborhoods and similar place-based initiatives must work to address racial disparities if they are to improve and sustain positive and equitable outcomes for children and young people on a large scale. This brief argues that Promise Neighborhoods, and similarly structured initiatives, are uniquely positioned to serve as a platform—or launching point—for advancing racial equity.
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.
Framing Communications to Drive Social Change
Author: Emily Peiffer, Megan Gallagher | Year of Publication: 2021
Framing is a crucial part of storytelling in all communications—from social media posts to long-form articles to funder presentations. Framing can determine how audiences interpret a message and whether the product achieves its goal. This brief summarizes a course presented by the FrameWorks Institute in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education and the Urban Institute, as part of the Promise Neighborhoods federal training and technical assistance support. The course explores how the right framing can encourage audiences to understand the systemic causes of and solutions to social problems.
Local Data as an Equity Tool
Author: Fay Walker, Sonia Torres Rodríguez, Mica O'Brien | Year of Publication: 2021
Data intermediaries and backbone organizations, two types of place-based organizations, play a key role in helping their communities attain equitable outcomes by building local data capacity, creating data-driven partnerships, and centering community voices.
Evaluating Programs and Impact within Promise Neighborhoods
Author: Peter A. Tatian, Benny Docter | Year of Publication: 2020
Place-based education and community change interventions such as Promise Neighborhoods face distinct challenges designing and executing high-quality evaluations. Because these efforts attempt to create population-level change by using a comprehensive continuum of cradle-to-career programming, experimental evaluation methods may be impractical or inappropriate. Nevertheless, planning, formative, and quasi-experimental methods can be used to conduct rigorous and instructive evaluations of Promise Neighborhoods.