National Accelerator Fund to Support Collective Impact in Dallas

Our community has always come together in remarkable ways to support our students. Recognition for this hard work and progress came this past week with the announcement that Dallas County, represented by the Commit! Partnership, has been selected as 1 of only 6 communities nationally to participate in the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Accelerator Fund, a three-year, $15 million project designed to help communities like ours strengthen our collective ability to improve student outcomes.

As a result of this highly competitive process, Dallas County will benefit from resources to enable timely data-sharing and capacity-building for continuous improvement, increased community accountability for student outcomes and broader implementation of promising practices. The goal is to attain consistent growth each year against the majority of the Partnership’s community achievement indicators. Over the summer, a more detailed action plan will be developed with the assistance of the StriveTogether team and the input of partners across the Dallas County infrastructure.

In addition to funding one-time expenses (not Commit! staff costs), StriveTogether will provide strategic assistance, capacity-building activities and trainings in specific areas, such as continuous improvement, data use and results-based leadership. Through our participation, we will also help build knowledge and tools to accelerate results for cradle to career collective impact initiatives across the country.

The StriveTogether Cradle to Career Accelerator Fund is supported by several philanthropic organizations, corporations and private investors, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, KnowledgeWorks, Target and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, a philanthropic account administered by Vanguard Charitable.

We are excited about this honor and the opportunity to accelerate our work together. Please reach out to Jonathan Feinstein to learn more.