Dear PSA2 supporter,
Greetings from the Grantmakers for Education Postsecondary Access and Attainment (PSA2) Impact Group! We have been busy working on initiatives and planning activities for 2017. We wanted to share with you some of the exciting plans underway to fulfill our impact group mission.
As you may recall, the PSA2 Impact Group’s mission is to deepen Grantmakers for Education member learning and facilitate collaboration; to inspire and take collective action at scale; and to achieve an impact that improves postsecondary access and attainment for students. This mission has inspired a strong collaborative effort among Grantmakers for Education members.
Recently, our steering committee committed to learning together with an ambition for urgent impact. For this year, we have prioritized the following two streams of work to fulfill that commitment:
1) Continuing to support and learn from the Strong Start to Finish initiative (formerly Unlocking the Pipeline), a campaign to quantifiably improve the number and proportion of low-income students, students of color and returning adults completing postsecondary math and English courses and entering a program of study in their first academic year of college.
- If you are interested in an update on the initiative, watch for our webinar, coming this summer.
- This spring, we also plan to circulate through this group a request for proposals to support this initiative.
2) Launching an initiative focused on affordability. As a first step, we are curating a set of resources related to research and practice on affordability. You can participate in this effort by posting any materials on affordability to GFE Connects in the PSA2 group.
We also have exciting plans for the Grantmakers for Education annual conference (the following dates and times are subject to change):
- Join us for a special meeting focused on affordability on Sunday afternoon, October 15, just prior to the Grantmakers for Education conference (October 16-18).
- Don’t miss the opportunity to network with other members interested in PSA2 at the PSA2 reception on Monday, October 16.
In the interim, we look forward to hearing from you about various initiatives around the country on GFE Connects.
Best regards,
The PSA2 Impact Group co-chairs
Mara Botman Rebecca Villarreal
Circle of Service Foundation Kresge Foundation