Building a GradNation: How America’s Promise is Creating Impact
By: Angela Richardson, 2014 Proinspire Fellow
When I started my fellowship at America’s Promise, I came at a very exciting time in the GradNation campaign. The GradNation program at America’s Promise strives to achieve a 90 percent high school graduation rate across the nation. For the first time in history, the national high school graduation rate surpassed 80 percent. When I first heard this at the 2014 Building a GradNation Summit, I was in awe – not because I didn’t believe it was possible but because I couldn’t understand how one organization with just one location in the District of Columbia could mobilize an entire nation to act on such an ambitious goal.
The ProInspire Training held in April 2015, helped to shed light on how this is possible. Devi Thomas, Director of the United Nations Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign led our cohort discussion about movement to impact. A key point that Devi shared was that an organization must build a brand around a specific cause that could be something Americans would care about. America’s Promise did just that very successfully! In response to the national dropout crisis in our nation, America’s Promise launched the GradNation Campaign in 2010 to raise awareness and inspire action. Yet the hardest concept to measure in an advocacy campaign is the actual impact of a specific initiative. So how is America’s Promise doing that? First, as Devi shared with us during our training, an organization must develop messaging that resonates with a lot of people. This task is crucial in order for any campaign to go from movement to impact. Once an organization has a message in place, they must define their vision. The vision developed by America’s Promise for the GradNation campaign is to increase the national high school graduation rate to 90 percent by 2020. To many, this vision seems impossible. And, a vision like this doesn’t seem like it can be accomplished by an intermediary organization. However, this vision is becoming a true reality as America’s Promise continues to move the needle closer to their 90 percent goal – the impact of a – so far – successful campaign.
Next, the campaign has to have one, simplified call to action. This call to action should call for stakeholders to get involve so that they can I understand the importance of the vision. The GradNation Community Summits have been the most successful way for America’s Promise to reach their audience and bring about measurable impact. Through the GradNation Community Summit series, America’s Promise works with community partners to convene 100 summits across the country through 2016. The purpose of the summits are “to fuel local collaborative action to increase high school graduation rates.” Because of the community summits, individuals and organizations across various sectors are unified and encouraged to work together in order to develop a blueprint to accelerate progress. From business leaders to faith-based organizations, politicians to everyday citizens, the summits bring stakeholders to the table to identify the most critical problems in their local area and to devise an action plan that will help achieve the overall goals of the campaign. Through the GradNation Community Summits alone, America’s Promise tackled the second important step in moving from movement to measurable impact – define and create a community.
Finally, the campaign must define and share impact. In February, the US Department of Education announced that the national high school graduation rate hit a new record high of 81 percent. The latest number shows that not only is America’s Promise getting closer to its 2020 goal but that nation as whole is continuing to make progress on increasing high school graduation rates and that young people are being led to success. With such great news, some would think that the next four years would be a piece of cake America’s Promise in reaching their 90 percent goal, right? Unfortunately, much work still needs to be done, especially since almost 750,000 students are still choosing to leave school each year without a diploma in hand. As Devi stated, the work is never done; and since the work is never done, America’s Promise has the momentum it needs to continue creating awareness and inspiring others to make our nation a “GradNation.”
2014 ProInspire Fellow Angela Richardson serves as the Development Associate for America’s Promise Alliance, the nation’s largest partnership devoted to helping create the conditions for success for all young people. Angela graduated with a BA in Journalism from Howard University and a Master’s in Social Work from Temple University. Follow her on Twitter: @simplyange__.