About the Partnership
Together as a Network
A diverse collection of over 100 Partners have come together as an integrated, Cradle-to-Career network to advance educational equity across Marin by strengthening our county's system of schools and educational support services.
Our unique approach includes the following elements:
Equity & Antiracism - Racial equity for students in Marin will be achieved when race and ethnicity no longer predict the outcome of a young person’s educational future. Partners commit to taking antiracist action to identify and dismantle racial inequities, and to provide equity-based supports. Click HERE to visit our racial equity resources page.
Targeted Universalism - Together Partners set universal goals of educational excellence for all students, yet focus their collaborative action on targeted strategies to eliminate racial disparities.
Systemic Change - The Partnership's focus on systemic, rather than programmatic change, complements and amplifies our individual efforts.
Collective Impact - We are better together, especially when supported by the Partnership's unique Backbone staffing arrangement.
Continuous Improvement - Our collective work is guided by shining a learning light on numbers and narratives (aka data) that help us hold each other accountable to continuously improving with results at the center.
Building Civic Infrastructure
By combining Backbone support in team facilitation, shared data, and collaborative communications with the lived experience and professional expertise of individual and institutional Partners, together we are accomplishing what none can do alone. Through this unparalleled, network-of-networks approach, in which local teams are linked together within a larger countywide effort, a unique and exciting collective strategy has emerged with unprecedented potential to create a legacy of systemic transformation and enduring community impact.
Backbone Staff Know-How
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Partner Expertise
As a Partnership, we’re collectively building civic infrastructure to support every child from cradle to career. What does that look like?
Civic infrastructure is not a program to set up. Rather, it is the way all the moving pieces in a community are arranged to work together. Unlike roads, bridges and the electrical grid, civic infrastructure includes connections we can’t see. These connections are formed through relationships, trust, collaboration, funding, goal setting and data sharing. Stewarding and fostering these connections is what the Partnership is all about.
Building high quality, equitable civic infrastructure doesn’t just happen on its own. Left unattended, infrastructure will be unconsciously (or consciously!) created through power, privilege and biased self-interest. When this happens, civic infrastructure looks more like walls and fences than bridges and pathways. Siloed inefficiency can quickly become entrenched barriers. But when civic infrastructure is intentionally developed through an equity lens with the collective involvement of all stakeholders, especially those who have been most impacted by historical inequity – great things can happen!
Here's How it Works ...
ALIGNMENT
The Backbone Staff helps partners bring together the right people, in the same room to align around a common vision under a proven Cradle to Career framework.
ACTION
Collaborative Action Teams, guided by Backbone Staff facilitators, develop collective strategies and take courageous, collaborative, antiracist action while measuring and continuously improving toward results.
ACCOUNTABILITY
With technical support from Backbone Staff, partners agree to share data to hold each other accountable, and to learn and lead with integrity.
ADVOCACY
Partners, stewarded by Backbone Staff, jointly advocate for bold systemic shifts in policies, practices, resources and power structures.
Core Values
Compassion
Integrity
Justice
Equity
Core Values
Compassion
Integrity
Justice
Equity
Marin Promise Partnership is part of the StriveTogether movement, a nationally acclaimed network of more than 70 Cradle-to-Career communities across 30 states.
Strive’s mission is to partner with communities to ensure every child has every chance to succeed because race, ethnicity, poverty and circumstance should not determine opportunity or outcome. This cradle to career network is closing gaps and creating opportunities across education, health, housing and more.
As a member of the StriveTogether network, Marin Promise Partners have access to workshops, resources, conferences, professional development, statewide advocacy networks, and funding. Contact us to become a Partner so you can gain access to this unique and valuable resource.
Thanks to the hard work of Partners and Backbone Staff, Marin has been designated a Systems Change community. Click HERE to read more and to get involved.
“I believe that Marin Promise is the answer we have been waiting for – using a proven, successful model of collaboration and data-driven decision-making to make real system-wide change. We need to rethink ‘business as usual’ because it isn’t working.”
