America Achieves

Investing in America's Communities Project.As part of America Achieves focus on tackling the near-term and long-term impacts of the COVID pandemic, in the summer of 2020, we informed the design and supported implementation of supported national and local implementation of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge and the Good Jobs Challenge administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce.The Build Back Better Regional Challenge is a $1 billion federal grant competition with the goal to boost economic recovery from the pandemic and rebuild American communities, including for those parts of the nation that have experienced decades of disinvestment. The Good Jobs Challenge is a $500 million federal grant competition that aims to dramatically transform communities, help more Americans secure good-paying jobs, and produce a skilled American workforce to ensure our nation is prepared to innovate, compete, and succeed in a 21st Century global economy.Given the alignment of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge and the Good Jobs Challenge with America Achieves mission, our organization in 2021 supported 30 regions across the country in competing for federal funding from both U.S. Department of Commerce programs, with a specific focus on ensuring regions embedded into their applications workforce development and education, equity , and strategic and program cohesion. Our support ranged from light-touch webinars and office hours to in-depth application reviews and feedback sessions. Many of the regions we supported were awarded grants by the U.S. Department of Commerce, catalyzing multi-year regional strategies to make effective use of federal funding to advance equitable economic and skills development. After the initial grant application deadline, America Achieves was chosen by the U.S. Department of Commerce to help design and quarterback a federally-funded Technical Assistance Coalition that supported all 60 regions who had achieved finalist status for the program. Through 2022, America Achieves assessed each region's individual and unique needs, and subsequently designed and provided light-touch and in-depth support to each ranging from 1:1 consultation, topical webinars, and responsive resources to help regions strengthen their proposals through iterative feedback on their strategies and focus on equity. In June 2022, America Achieves also designed, organized, and led summer convenings of all 60 Build Back Better Regional Challenge finalists in Washington, DC, where leaders from each region spent several days interacting and learning from each other, experts, and public officials. Collective Impact Fund.Building on the work with the Build Back Better Regional Challenge and Good Jobs Challenge, America Achieves designed, implemented, and is leading the development of a subsequent philanthropic Collective Impact Fund. Our aim is to advance the momentum and continued success of grant winners and other applicants and promising regional initiatives. America Achieves is working with partners to implement a menu of supports and services including: (1) the development of and connections to funding opportunities (both federal and philanthropic) and (2) targeted technical assistance and technical assistance matchmaking; and (3) talent recruitment for high-leverage roles.In regards to funding opportunities and connections, America Achieves is working to provide Build Back Better Regional Challenge regions with connections to funders (both government and philanthropic) that are strategically-aligned to their projects, proposals, and objectives. By providing tailored recommendations and working with funders to provide ongoing information and perspective about the regions with which we have worked extensively, America Achieves aims to catalyze the work of existing and forthcoming skills and economic development work of regions across the nation. Furthermore, in regards to talent recruitment, America Achieves has partnered with best-in-class, equity-centered talent firms across the nation to source and recruit a diverse pool of candidates for immediate and high-leverage roles that regions must fill soon to succeed in their implementation. The sourcing and recruitment we do will serve as the basis for the beginnings of a field-wide skills and economic development talent pool, intended to accelerate talent placements for future inclusive skills and economic development projects and investments across the country.State Recovery Now Project.In 2021, America Achieves, through our State Recovery Now project, developed and published a strong, cohesive, and actionable set of state-level economic mobility and workforce development policies, recommendations, and analyses of how states and localities could use funding from the American Rescue Plan to advance economic mobility and workforce development and to help our nation recover from the COVID-19 crisis. America Achieves published these policies, recommendations, and analyses and shared them with the public and a bipartisan set of policymakers. America Achieves also shared publicly our resources - including a knowledge mobilization plan, a searchable database, resource planning guides, a website - and developed an initial foundation for a long-term community of practice.National Tutoring Project (Accelerate).In 2021, America Achieves conceived, incubated, and launched Accelerate, a national tutoring initiative to help educational leaders across the country build the tools and strategies needed to accelerate learning for historically underserved students across the country. Accelerate accomplished this by driving direct student impact in proof point districts, states, and programs that leverage the existing evidence base on high-impact tutoring, further contributing to and building the evidence base for high-impact tutoring, investing in innovative solutions to key barriers to scaling up tutoring, and shaping the actions of the range of partners needed to continue to invest in high-impact tutoring in the long term - including policymakers, funders, school systems, tutoring providers, and community organizations. Informed by America Achieves experience and expertise, a central strategy of Accelerate is to ensure a strong, coordinated, strategic research agenda that informs the field by deepening the understanding of what makes tutoring effective, how to implement it at large scale, and how to make it more cost-effective so that this proven intervention can become an enduring part of the landscape of public education in America, sustainably and equitably serving students at large scale.America Achieves conceived of the idea, raised $65 million for this national initiative, and launched pilot programs around the country to support implementation, research, and policymaking related to tutoring - to lay the groundwork for Accelerates long-term impact. We also recruited Janice Jackson (former CEO of Chicago Public Schools) to serve as the Founding Executive Chair of the organization that subsequently spun off in January 2023, and Kevin Huffman (former Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education) to lead Accelerate as its Founding Chief Executive Officer.As planned from the outset and as America Achieves has done previously with many of its incubated initiatives, we subsequently spun off Accelerate into its own 501c3 in January 2023 - well set up for near-term and long-term educational impact.