equity

Collaborative supported Center for Student Opportunity (CSO) in its quest to become a nationally recognized clearninghouse of important information on local, regional and national programs that assist this target student population in college guidance, preparation and admission. By providing strategic support and engagement strategies for foundations, corporations and the media to promote utilization of CSO’s College Access & Opportunity Guide, Collaborative helped to position the organization as a conduit between students and a large number of colleges and universities that have targeted first-generation and underserved students for admission.

Collaborative has a long-standing partnership with the Annenberg Institute, with common commitments to core principles of results, equity, community and learning. Our collective goal over the past six years has been to support the integration of knowledge management across the organization and across the field. Collaborative’s work has included a variety of efforts to support the Institute in creating, sharing and utilizing knowledge that can accelerate improvements in education systems, whether in schools, districts, communities or states.

Some key projects with the Institute include support in designing, implementing and documenting an Emerging Knowledge Forum for three years, created to deepen the dialogue and provide opportunities for 100 leaders in education reform to learn from each in interactive and meaningful learning sessions.

With funding from the Gates Foundation, Collaborative helped the Institute to assess its own efforts to share useful online knowledge products and tools within its networks. By examining lessons from the Institute's dissemination and utilization efforts, and comparing those insights with state-of-art practice of other organizations. Collaborative helped the Institute to define the purpose of “tools” and outlined a series of recommendations to improve the engagement of end-users, motivate constituents, and track the impact of the use of Annenberg Institute's online resources.

In addition, Collaborative has provided strategic public relations and media outreach services to maximize the distribution of the research findings in support of the Institute’s release of a seven-year study, funded by the C.S. Mott Foundation that has led to a national dialogue on the direct correlation between community organizing efforts and the improvement of student achievement. 

Collaborative provides the Foundation for Orange County Public Schools with knowledge and expertise on community engagement and strategic planning on an ongoing basis, as well as conducting planning sessions among decision makers.

Collaborative facilitated a meeting of a steering committee to help make decisions on ongoing engagement strategies. Collaborative provided guidance and technical assistance regarding ongoing public engagement activities and consulted monthly on technical assistance and strategy. We designed a comprehensive community engagement strategy to address plans for a high school in the historic community of Eatonville that produced a report from the community to the school board.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sought out Collaborative to serve as lead strategic and organizational planner for a local education fund whose goal was to ensure excellence in Washington, DC public schools. Collaborative worked with the DC Education Compact (DCEC) to determine how best to ensure that students in the city's public schools achieve excellence with the support of their community. Collaborative’s efforts included shaping the mission, vision, priorities and strategies for the organization's work.