Collaborative Action

The Difference between Collaboration and Collective Impact

November 12, 2025

We recently hit the benchmarks of having over 150 communities reach out to us and 80 communities having completed the Site Readiness Assessment to join the Strive Network. As we start our discussions with each community on the work of collective impact through building civic infrastructure, I would estimate at least half have declared “we [...]

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Cincinnati’s Collective Impact Efforts recognized by Education Nation

September 25, 2025

Cincinnati’s efforts to improve academic achievement in the region’s urban core received recognition this past weekend by NBC’s Education Nation. Highlighted by NBC are the many improvements seen throughout the community, including a nine percent increase in kids ready to enter kindergarten and a 24 percent increase in eighth grade math scores. NBC’s story talked [...]

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What is this Civic Infrastructure?

August 13, 2025

“We are building the civic infrastructure necessary to support every child from cradle to career.” Well, that sounds pretty fantastic, but what does that actually mean? At Strive, we have defined ‘Civic Infrastructure’ as: A way in which a region or community comes together to hold itself collectively accountable for implementing their own unique cradle [...]

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Guilford County: Collective Impact in Action

July 30, 2025

In 15 years of working with the media, one thing that’s certain is competition among outlets can be fierce as news teams and editors work diligently to get the right story in front of the right people at the right time. In Guilford County, the presence of two major cities – High Point and Greensboro [...]

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Communications Toolkit for Strive Network Members Unveiled

May 24, 2025

Yesterday, more than 30 Strive Network communities participated in a Network-member webinar focused on the different ways that these Cradle to Career partnerships can best communicate their work to the media and to local community members. After Carly Rospert, Communications & Strategic Assistance Associate for the Strive Network, unveiled the brand new Communications Toolkit, two [...]

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Creating and Adapting to the “New Job Description”

April 24, 2026

I was just recently part of a discussion with several of the Strive Cradle to Career communities about how they’re working to promote shared accountability within networks that are building collaborative action plans. It became clear throughout the conversation that this is one of the toughest challenges that partnerships wrestle through. There is no denying [...]

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Aligning the Partnership to Regional Goals

December 21, 2025

A challenging aspect of this work is figuring out how a more focused cradle to career partnership fits into a community’s regional or even state-wide context. In many communities, regional, metropolitan and neighborhood level goals and aspirations already exist. How do we align these goals to that of the partnership so we can ensure collaborative [...]

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