Document Tag: partnerships

Community Colleges and Human Services Nonprofits BOOSTing Family Economic Success Through Organizational Policy and Practice (2023)

The BOOST initiative connects families with low incomes to critical human services supports and educational and career pathways to advance multigenerational family economic success. In six cities — Baltimore, Maryland; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Hartford, Connecticut; New York City (Queens); Portland, Oregon; and Syracuse, New York— community colleges and human services nonprofits have partnered to support the economic advancement of families as part of the BOOST initiative. The partners at these BOOST sites are guided by six core tenets that advance family social and economic success: partnership, learning, lifetime and springboard jobs, sustainability, racial equity, and the two-generation (2Gen) approach, also sometimes referred to as the whole-family approach, as defined by Ascend at the Aspen Institute.
BOOST partnerships place a particular emphasis on racial equity—both the process and outcome of seeking to understand and address the programmatic, institutional, and policy barriers families of color face in higher education and human services systems. Over time, BOOST partners have deepened their understanding of systemic racism and how it influences individual and organizational thinking and are now shifting their organizational practices to support more equitable outcomes.
This brief explores how community colleges and human services nonprofits can partner to advance multigenerational family economic success and how these partners can lean into their unique strengths as they seek to achieve this goal. It looks at how the six BOOST sites are working to change policies and access funding at the institutional, state, and federal levels to support their partnership goals. It also highlights practices and insights learned from the BOOST initiative, with the intent of aiding and accelerating other efforts to follow this collaborative path.

Cross-Sectoral Benefits Hubs: An Innovative Approach to Supporting College Students’ Basic Needs

The pandemic is laying bare one of the most difficult challenges facing higher education: many of today’s undergraduates are pursuing degrees without sufficient resources. With average net prices (after all grant aid) approaching $15,000 a year for public community colleges and more than $19,000 a year for public four-year institutions, even students from middle-class families are hard-pressed to make ends meet.2 This net price of attending college is a leading reason why food and housing insecurity was widespread before the pandemic, and is now likely growing.3 Faced with tight budgets, states and institutions are seeking innovative solutions to help students obtain food and housing supports. Comprehensive supports that integrate access to public benefits, emergency aid, and navigational help are co-located on the campus where students attend classes. These supports are a particularly promising approach that has been advanced for more than a decade. Models including the Working Students Success Network, Single Stop, the Benefits Access for College Completion, and Advocacy and Resource Centers, like the one at Amarillo College, all offer examples. However, each of these draws primarily on the resources of institutions—mainly community colleges—where resources are increasingly scarce. The Benefits Hubs operated by the United Way of King County (UWKC) in Seattle’s community and technical colleges (as well as one public university) offer an alternate model. Over the last academic year, we explored the Benefits Hub approach, which is an innovative cross-sectoral partnership between communitybased organizations and higher education institutions. We find the model promising, and this report explains its key elements. We are also in the midst of a rigorous summative evaluation funded by Arnold Ventures to estimate the program’s impacts on students’ education, health, and well-being.