Source: Grand Rapids Southeast Promise Neighborhood, https://grsepn.org

Since 2010, the U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhoods program has catalyzed 46 communities across the nation working to ensure their children are prepared to "attain an excellent education and successfully transition to college and a career." Inspired by the Harlem Children's Zone, Promise Neighborhoods' cradle-to-career approach supports children from birth to adulthood and enables community-led transformations of neighborhoods. In dozens of communities across the United States, the program has done just that through evidence-based programming, continuous improvement processes, responsiveness to community needs, and collaboration with state and local efforts.

What do grantees think makes the Promise Neighborhoods program unique?

Continuous improvement with evidence-based programming.

Promise Neighborhoods grantees first conduct a needs assessment to identify areas where high-quality programming is needed to support children and families. Grantees are then encouraged to adopt the Results-Based Accountability™ framework, a "data-driven, decision-making process to help communities and organizations get beyond talking about problems to taking action to solve problems." Adopting Results-Based Accountability enables grantees to integrate data systems and evaluate program efficacy, design data-driven programming that better serves the needs of their communities, and evaluate the well-being of the community at large. Evaluations of community well-being are captured through 10 community-wide outcomes (measured with Government Performance and Results Act indicators), such as reduced chronic absenteeism and increased kindergarten readiness.

One example of this evidence-based program development is the Grand Rapids Southeast Promise Neighborhood's three-tiered data system, which tracks outcomes including and beyond the 10 results in service of Grand Rapid's goal to "ensure strong starts and promising futures" for the children in this Promise Neighborhood. Tier One tracks Grand Rapid's 10 results indicators, Tier Two tracks individual cradle-to-career program outcomes, and Tier Three tracks program implementation measures such as who and how many families received the evidence-based services and how well the service was provided. The data from these three tiers inform shared understandings of the impact at the program level and community wide. Through interactive data dashboards, backbone Western Michigan University's partners and neighborhood residents can follow trends in these outcomes to inform service provision and broader community dialogue about the work of the Promise Neighborhood. In the third year of the grant, Western Michigan University has aligned partners around this data system, supported partners in developing program-specific outcome and implementation process indicators, and established a comprehensive data management system for efficient and effective coordination of activities across organizations.

Hope Zone Promise Neighborhood (Hope Zone) incorporates Results-Based Accountability into its work with several working groups and councils with partners ranging from educational institutions, economic development groups, and faith-based organizations to social services, medical and behavioral health providers, and neighborhood residents of all ages. According to Hope Zone, Results-Based Accountability training has led members of these groups to prioritize sharing data and more deeply discussing results and implications with the community, making their work more efficient and productive.

Sustained results while continually adapting to community needs.

Promise Neighborhoods grantees bolster existing and develop new community partnerships to sustain programming and outcomes beyond their grant periods. Through direct involvement with community leaders, grantees respond and adapt to the needs of their communities while working to improve community-wide outcomes and other key indicators.

In 2014, Mission Promise Neighborhood's backbone organization, Mission Economic Development Agency , combined findings from its Neighborhood Survey with Census data and a published study of housing needs in the Mission neighborhood to better understand how a lack of affordable housing in San Francisco was inhibiting children in the Promise Neighborhood footprint from succeeding academically. To address this barrier, Mission Economic Development Agency used Promise Neighborhood funding to hire a housing expert for its Strong and Safe Neighborhoods program manager role who helped shine a light on key issues the city could address.

These efforts were fruitful. Mission Economic Development Agency worked with city hall and private investors to purchase apartment buildings, rehabilitate apartments, and develop new affordable housing. By the time Mission Promise Neighborhood concluded its grant in 2022, it had gone from serving the Mission neighborhood to working with partners to scale the approach to neighborhoods throughout San Francisco. Today, the lessons and strategies from Mission Promise Neighborhood are being applied across San Francisco-evidence that their backbone organization's vision of a co-created "Promise City" is well underway.

During the first year of its grant, California State University, East Bay (the second grantee in the San Francisco Bay Area) worked with its early childhood education partner to assess needs and strengthen Downtown Hayward Promise Neighborhood's relationships and trust. As a byproduct of this effort, the backbone funded two longstanding Promise Neighborhood partners to send representatives into the community to provide health education, medical and psychological screening, food support, and other essential services to young children and families in 2023. California State University, East Bay recognized that these strong partnerships have deepened the community's trust in the Downtown Hayward Promise Neighborhood and its work, setting the stage for shared investment and community-wide transformation for decades to come.

National policy efforts through collaboration across city, county, and state lines.

Promise Neighborhoods grantees participate in peer learning year-round through a variety of avenues: communities of practice on topics such as data and leadership, an annual Promise Neighborhoods and Full-Service Community Schools National Network Conference, and ad hoc connections with other grantees for technical assistance. This collaboration has driven impact beyond grantees' footprints to the city, county, state, and national levels.

The California Promise Neighborhoods Network offers an example of these statewide efforts. Starting in 2017, six Promise Neighborhoods in California solidified their shared vision and strong partnerships and coordinated action to bolster cradle-to-career support across the state. In doing so, the California Promise Neighborhoods Network has partnered with statewide education initiatives such as the End Child Poverty Campaign and California Forward to gather statewide support and coordinate advocacy.

Further, the National Promise Neighborhoods Coalition-founded in 2022 by backbone organizations from four Promise Neighborhoods, Harlem Children's Zone, and Save the Children-seeks to support the family-centric, educational, and economic changes brought by Promise Neighborhoods into a permanent transformation at the national level. By deepening its collaboration beyond the silos of the communities, this national coalition amplifies the impact of place-based partnerships and builds the ability to attract additional funding for Promise Neighborhoods and their service partners. The effectiveness of this national coalition in promoting place-based partnerships at a national level is also bidirectional because participation in Promise Neighborhoods improves their collaboration and combined efforts to bridge solutions.