StriveTogether

10/15/2026

What happens to a graduate after the high school diploma is in hand?

Baltimore’s Promise went looking for the answer and found something hard to ignore: 26% of Baltimore City Schools graduates did not show up in postsecondary education or the workforce the fall after graduation.

“We tend to think of this high school credential as a key credential and pathway to lead to economic self-sufficiency, but that pathway was broken for so many of our young people.” — Dr. James Sadler, senior director of actionable data at Baltimore’s Promise.

So they built the bridge. Baltimore’s Promise brought ecosystem partners together — Baltimore City Public Schools and the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development — to launch Grads2Careers, offering free occupational training to recent graduates in healthcare, IT, construction, logistics and biotechnology.

Nearly a decade later, the data shows it’s working. Young people who complete Grads2Careers and land a job in their trained field earn $3,500 more a year than their peers.

More than 1,500 young people have come through the program across 12 career pathways. And the share of Baltimore youth disconnected from both school and work has been cut roughly in half since 2015.

That’s what happens when a community stops treating graduation as a finish line and looks far beyond it.

📘 Read the full case study to see how three institutions built a system that gets young people to postsecondary completion — and a paycheck that can sustain them. Linked in the comments.

10/13/2026

So many organizations are sitting on powerful data — but struggle to translate it into strategy and action. Sound familiar?

Collecting data is just the beginning. Using Data to Drive Change, a free course offered on The Training Hub Powered by StriveTogether, is designed to help you turn that data into outcomes for your community.

You'll explore the full arc of data in action: building a community-centered data strategy, engaging partners in making sense of what the numbers mean, and communicating results in ways that push systems to improve.

This course combines self-paced pre-work with three live virtual sessions — facilitated by Lauren Thiesse.

The fall cohort kicks off with it's first session on November 2.
Save your seat before registration closes October 19.
https://hubs.li/Q04B2m-T0

10/09/2026

A week ago, we were in Baltimore with hundreds of you.
The 2026 Cradle to Career Network Convening brought together Network members, partners, funders, policymakers and young people around a single question: what does it take to fulfill our promise to America's youth?

Across three days, the answer kept coming back to infrastructure — the connective tissue between policy, practice and partnership that determines whether or not a young person's zip code decides their future.

Here are a few gems that stuck with us:

“The only way we’re going to get there is by doing this together. It has to be all connected.” – Stephen Dackin, director of Ohio Department of Education of Workforce

"You can see also that you're beginning to come up with answers in a movement that people will then think in the future was part of history." – George Packer, National Book Award-winning author

“If we're gonna talk about what America’s gonna look like in the next 250 years, young people can't just be the ones who inherit it. We have to be the ones who help build it.” – Camila Calero, Baltimore’s Promise and youth panelist

We also celebrated two leaders and a partnership who are setting the standard for this work: Sonja Santelises (Cheryl Broadnax Award), Dr. David James (Bill Henningsgaard Award) and Rocky Mountain Partnership (Nancy Zimpher Award). Congratulations to each of you on these awards and thank you for your contributions to this work.

Over the next several weeks, we'll be sharing some insights from plenaries and a few breakout sessions — so you can revisit a moment that stuck with you, catch something you may have missed and then continue to bring it all back to your own community.

Thank you to Baltimore's Promise, to every speaker and facilitator, and to all of you who showed up ready to do the work! We can't wait to do this again next year — see you in Austin, Texas!

10/08/2026

What does finishing a postsecondary credential make possible?

The numbers are clear. A high school diploma brings a median of $1.6 million in lifetime earnings. An associate degree brings $2 million. A bachelor's degree brings $2.8 million. And in the skilled trades, apprentices who finish see a median starting salary of about $86,000.

Every credential completed moves the needle.

But completion isn't guaranteed by enrollment. Students who start and leave without a credential often pay a real cost — lost time, and in many cases debt, without the earnings that come with finishing.

That's why postsecondary completion is one of the seven outcomes StriveTogether tracks across the cradle-to-career journey. It tells us whether K-12 systems are preparing students to finish what they start, and whether colleges and training programs are set up to help them do it.

Communities across our network are already closing the distance between who starts and who finishes.

📘 Read our full explainer on why postsecondary completion matters: https://hubs.li/Q04zDlsr0

10/06/2026

10/06/2026

📢 Heads up — these 5 courses on The Training Hub Powered by StriveTogether are closing registration in October!

If you've been thinking about deepening your leadership skills, sharpening your ability to read data or finally unlocking the systems change work you know is possible, these courses are perfect for you.

Here's what's happening this month:

🎯 Leading Change in Systems with Ashley B. Stewart — Transform the structures and mindsets that limit your community. Closes Oct 12. https://hubs.li/Q04zkY5_0

🧠 Practicing Adaptive Leadership with Krishna Dahya — Navigate uncertainty and lead through complexity with resilience and clarity. Closes Oct 12. https://hubs.li/Q04zkYsK0

🔍 Live Workshop: Looking from the Balcony with Kevin Gilmore — Step back to see the full picture of what's shaping your work. Oct 13, 2-3:30 p.m. ET. https://hubs.li/Q04zkYng0

📊 Using Data to Drive Change with Nick Lennon and Jalisa Hunn — Move from data collection to real community impact. Closes Oct 19. https://hubs.li/Q04zkY7G0

✨ Holding Space For Results: Advanced Facilitation with Sarah Cotton Rajski — For experienced facilitators ready to navigate conflict and deepen collaborative work. Results Based Facilitation 101 is a pre-requisite for this course. Closes Oct 22. https://hubs.li/Q04zkYp50

And as always, the courses are all completely free.
Register today!

10/05/2026

Join our team! We're for a Senior Manager, Insights and Analytics. This role will lead StriveTogether’s data supports for network members. You will convene and coach members in data roles, provide consultation on data analytics and reporting, and direct the data collection, tools and dashboards members rely on, including the products that turn the data that members submit into insights they can use.

Learn more and apply here:
https://hubs.li/Q04zdcms0

10/02/2026

✨ That's a wrap on the 2026 Network Convening! We had our largest turn out yet, with 714 people in attendance.

Three days in Baltimore. Four plenaries, dozens of breakout sessions and more hallway conversations than we could count — all pointed at one thing: putting 4 million more young people on a path to economic opportunity.

We heard from Michele Jolin, Mayor Monroe Nichols and Stephen Dackin on building civic infrastructure that lasts longer than any one administration. From George Packer on the distance between a 250-year-old promise and what young people live today, followed by a Q&A with our new President, Eshauna Smith. From Chanya Anderson, Camila Calero, Kerra Dukes, Tobius Nance and State Senator Cory McCray on what youth leadership looks like when it's real. And from Rebecca Winthrop on what young people need from us next.

Thank you to Baltimore's Promise for welcoming us to your city, to every speaker and facilitator who shared their work, and to the young people who shared their experience being part of this movement.

Let's bring it all home with us and keep improving outcomes for our youth — cradle to career.