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UWW looked to Collaborative to design and facilitate two face-to-face meetings and a series of webinars of a select group of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Local United Way organizations from across the nation. In these efforts, Collaborative provided the following:

• Comprehensive planning team leadership
• Overall design leadership for face to face meetings
• Learning facilitation
• Logistics and operational support

Collaborative teamed up the Education Foundation of Collier County (EFCC) to assist the district in developing and implementing its strategic plan. Two phases of work were identified for this 10-month project: Developing a vision and mission document and building operational plans.

In phase one, Collaborative worked with the superintendent, his cabinet, board members, and a strategic planning team of community stakeholders. With each of these groups, Collaborative did the following:

• Facilitated discussions to identify the vision, mission and values for the school district
• Synthesized notes and shared them will all groups to make sure everyone knew what each team was considering
• Developed draft vision document, which was revised several times based on the feedback from each of the groups

In phase two, Collaborative and the EFCC worked with the superintendent to select members for eight operational teams. Each team consisted of a combination of internal and external members, including district staff, principals, teachers and community members. With guidance from Collaborative these teams did the following:

• Developed an overall goal for their operational area
• Created objectives, indicators and strategies for this goal
• Considered implications of these efforts

During these efforts, EFCC conducted focus groups and outreach throughout the community to gain feedback about the draft document, operational team work and the overall process. This comprehensive engagement allowed the community to remain involved throughout the process.  

Collaborative worked in partnership with the Alliance, the James Irvine Foundation and ConnectEd—a group charged with advancing practice, policy, and research for Linked Learning—to develop a comprehensive and effective communications plan to help inform national education stakeholders of the impact of California’s Linked Learning Approach. 

The efforts focused on a two-day rollout to Congressional staff, officials from the Obama administration and the larger policy community both to inform them of the specifics of the Linked Learning approach, but also to connect the approach to the larger implications for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Action. 

Collaborative helped to develop a Hill briefing that included a broad range of stakeholders from California, including representation from the state department of education, the state teachers’ union, a local chamber of commerce, a community-based advocacy group, and a district implementing Linked Learning.

Since late 2007, there have been 25 community forums about the achievement gap in these six cities, engaging over 1,500 participants from a wide range of backgrounds, including those of Somali, Hmong, Hispanic, Korean, Native American, White, African American and Chinese descent. Educators, superintendents, principals and teachers participated in the conversations.

Collaborative attended at least two forums in each of the six participating cities and also conducted more than 20 follow-up interviews with educators, parents and students impacted by the achievement gap discussions.

Collaborative analyzed findings and compiled a report of key themes and future potential steps for the Kettering Foundation to take when seeking to engage communities in deliberations about aspirations and actions for educational quality.

Collaborative began the project with the print design, creating a piece that balanced large amounts of text with compelling pull quotes and images that reinforced the text. Next, we developed an online platform that closely resembled the look and feel of the print piece. This interactive solution has a built in commenting feature that encourages users to discuss publicly specific recommendations put forth in the report, share ideas and challenge assumptions. The report site is also connected to Aspen's broader social media strategy, through blog posts, Twitter feeds and other online connections. Both the print piece and the online platform are available in English and Spanish.

To create a dynamic online experience, Collaborative engaged directly with arts educators to learn what they needed in their professional development and to advance their careers. We also worked with NAEA to understand their organizational capacity and identified opportunities to build that capacity. We helped NAEA select and train a Web master. We delivered training and documentation that went beyond technical know-how and included recommendations on keeping content fresh, talking points around the site launch and identified ongoing outreach opportunities. We did more than simply deliver a Web site; we positioned NAEA for ongoing success.