| Notes |
Seven years of funding later, with additional mentoring from organizations in Tulsa and Hartford, the ZFFC opened a physical location, Bachman Lake Together Family Center, that serves families with young children with a variety of programs including education, health services, and financial coaching, all aimed at increasing school readiness in this neighborhood. This collaboration was important because it galvanized much of the giving community around a single, important topic about which they had become educated.
This project required collaboration with the Dallas Independent School District because area elementary school principals were critical to neighborhood success and the ability to determine if the programs were, in fact, raising the level of school readiness. Because area principals were receptive, supportive and, most importantly, good leaders for their campuses, this collaboration offered an opportunity for the funding community to contribute to the improvement of Early Childhood Learning and practices at the District.
About 3 or 4 years into this project, retired Goldman-Sachs executive Todd Williams studied a successful cradle to career program, Strive Partnership in Cincinnati, and brought the program to Dallas. He started a collective impact project called the Commit Partnership that began doing two key critical things. The first is bringing the variety of agencies, organizations and districts to the table in a neutral setting. Because of the ZFFC, everyone was aware of the funders’ desire that more collaboration take place at the service provider level. Commit was the entity which could convene the group.
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