How We Challenged the Future President & How We’re Moving America Forward
The conversations with policy leaders that shape our future intensify during a presidential campaign. And, not just on the debate stage, but at rallies, in diners, at town halls, and on rope lines
Over the course of this 2016 election cycle, the America Forward Coalition of more than 70 innovative, evidence-based, community organizations banded together to join the conversation and offer solutions to some of our country’s most pressing challenges related to education, workforce development, and poverty alleviation. We are united by a commitment to building partnerships and translating innovative local solutions into national change.
Our mission was — and continues to be — to show current and aspiring elected officials both the challenges Americans face and the breakthrough solutions communities have created. With the election behind us, we reflect on our accomplishments and stand ready to continue to promote proven, bipartisan solutions that create opportunity for all Americans.
Looking back on the 2016 election cycle
Amid a divisive election cycle, we understood the need to highlight what is working in this country and identify how we can scale those programs that effectively address the needs of children, youth, and families across American.
Laying the Groundwork
A year before the election, America Forward Coalition launched its 2016 Presidential Engagement Campaign to promote innovative policy ideas that align with our agenda of elevating effective, local solutions to the national level. We released a briefing book for the Presidential candidates and policy makers — Moving America Forward: Innovators Lead the Way to Unlocking America’s Potential — filled with the most effective approaches to addressing our country’s deepest social challenges. The work ahead of us was driven by the goal of uniting the social entrepreneur community in a national policy dialogue that would bring social innovation policy to the forefront in the 2016 election.
Meetings and Briefings
We took a boots-on-the-ground approach and met the campaigns out on the trail, from Nevada to Ohio to Florida. Driven by our coalition’s work in local communities, we held nearly 30 briefings with senior campaign staff on a range of policy solutions. By holding calls, briefings, and roundtables, our coalition organizations shared policy ideas with every major Presidential campaign. Many of our on-the-ground organizers met with the candidates themselves, talking with Governor Kasich on the rope line, asking Dr. Carson questions about the barriers Today’s Students face, and hosting Secretary Clinton in Las Vegas at YouthBuild USA, where she met with young people working towards credentials and developing new job skills.
Today’s Student Town Halls
We’ve learned from our community-based organizations that nothing is more powerful than hearing directly from people themselves about the real challenges they’re facing. That is why we organized town halls in the battleground states at the time of the political conventions to enable campaign staff and local elected officials to hear directly from a diverse cohort of Americans seeking higher education. Today’s post-secondary students are more diverse, older, financially independent, often working full time, and taking care of families while earning a degree. By hearing directly from today’s students, tomorrow’s policy leaders can shift the mental model of who Today’s Students really are.
Our Today’s Student Town Halls were widely attended by students, community partners, institutional leaders, local elected officials, and campaign staff. Students took to the floor to share their stories, highlighting the tremendous potential and real challenges associated with their higher education experiences. We heard from students like Rob who said, “For the first time I had failed a class…people tell you to be a student first, but it´s hard to be a student when you don´t have a roof over your head…. They need to be aware of what $40,000 in students loans looks like.”
We did not just lift up these powerful stories and work to bust the myths about today’s. We also shared ways to restructure our higher education system — providing concrete examples of programs and policies to help all students succeed.
Looking Ahead and Moving America Forward
While we celebrate our ability to reach the campaigns, we recognize our work is far from over. President-elect Trump and Members of Congress have a powerful opportunity to support policies that lift up innovative community solutions that nurture the potential of all Americans, by measuring what matters, investing in what works, and cultivating cross-sector partnerships that facilitate the research and development of future innovations and evidence-driven programs.
Throughout 2017, we will continue to meet with policymakers to offer up actionable policy ideas to make this vision a reality.
Our message is simple: Let’s invest in what works and scale up the community solutions that are best serving America. Specifically, we will promote:
UNLEASHING THE POWER OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS. Nonprofit and community-based organizations are employing roughly 10 percent of the country’s workforce, a number that has stayed consistent even during the latest economic recession. Let’s examine existing programs to open federal funding streams to proven organizations, expand the capacity of effective social entrepreneurs and nonprofits, and facilitate private sector investments in innovative programs by establishing a White House Office of Local Solutions and Entrepreneurship.
INVESTING IN EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS. Cross-sector partnerships are needed to support and scale high-quality community-based organizations and promising solutions for local problems. The tax system has historically been utilized to effectively incentivize investment in public policy priorities such as affordable housing. A new Community Solutions Tax Credit option could be used to scale high-impact, community-based solutions that address education, workforce development, and poverty alleviation by aligning the decision-making about investment with local plans and community needs.
ADVANCING A PAY FOR RESULTS AGENDA. Current government decision-making about policy and funding allocations is too often focused on inputs and outputs rather than on results. Making government more effective is a bipartisan idea that both Republican and Democratic administrations have embraced in various forms through the years. To build on this momentum, the next Administration should develop a Pay for Results agenda that supports policies and funding decisions that focus on results over inputs and outputs, that help unlock siloed resources, and that support development of and access to data.
UNDERSTANDING AND SUPPORTING ALL LEARNERS. One in five students in the U.S. have a learning disability, like dyslexia, dyscalculia or ADHD. Let’s drive progress and move the dialogue to the mainstream by discussing research-based approaches to addressing learning and attention issues, the impact of trauma, and how to meet the needs of students with learning disabilities and place them on a ladder of success. This could be accomplished through a White House Conference on Overcoming Barriers: Education and the American Dream to empower millions of families to make informed decisions about their students’ learning experience, and catalyze partnerships between community advocates and educators.ormed decisions about their students’ learning experience, and catalyze partnerships between community advocates and educators.
SCALING OUTCOMES-DRIVEN COLLEGE ACCESS AND SUCCESS PROGRAMS. As discussed above, the vision many of us have of a typical college student is no longer accurate. For instance, 40 percent of all today’s students are older than 25. The next Administration should create an Accelerating College Access and Success Fund to develop and scale innovations and organizations that increase college access, persistence, and completion, particularly for underrepresented students.
VALIDATING AND CREDENTIALING JOB READY SKILLS. Many employers today have identified a shortage of qualified workers for the estimated five million available jobs in the U.S. This reality is coupled with the fact that by 2020, 65% of jobs will require a post-secondary education in some form. Through the development and implementation of new outcomes-driven forms of credentialing and certification, we can improve post-secondary outcomes for students and reward in-demand skills that fill the skills gap in the economy.
CREATING GREATER OPPORTUNITIES FOR MORE AMERICANS TO SERVE. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who want to perform a service are turned away every year due to limited openings. National service programs can advance key agency goals cost-effectively, all while investing in the training and development of America’s workforce. President-elect Trump should increase the number of available full-time National Service positions so that any American who feels compelled to serve may do so.
Our country is strongest when we work together and learn from our local communities. The timing could not be more critical. As a nation, we have a unique opportunity to leverage proven, bipartisan solutions and create lasting pathways to opportunity for all Americans. Our work is cut out for us; and the time is now. Learn more at AmericaForward.org and join us as we challenge President-elect Trump to move all of America Forward.