Advance Together: Helping Texas communities build economic opportunity

Advance Together is a multiyear grant and technical assistance opportunity that supports community and regional cross-sector partnerships that are working to improve education and employment outcomes for lower-income people.

In a shared learning environment, Advance Together provides selected partnerships with training and external funding to help them strengthen their collaboration and achieve their goals.

Participating partnerships receive:

• Flexible funding through philanthropic partners (total of $300,000 in grants over three years)
• Customized technical assistance, a peer learning network and leadership development focusing on critical areas:
• Systems thinking and change
• Collaborative and adaptive leadership
• Community engagement
• Data-driven decision making
• Promising practices and trends in workforce and education fields

The Advance Together initiative supports the Federal Reserve’s mission to ensure the benefits of a strong economy are available to everyone. As part of our responsibilities, Reserve Banks work with community partners to help expand access to economic opportunity.

Advance Together aims to accelerate collaborative work across the public, nonprofit and business sectors that connects more people with quality jobs and education. These efforts help the Fed meet its mandated goal of maximum employment.

Across the U.S., many of the barriers people face in building economic mobility and resilience arise from complex structural issues that limit their access to education, jobs, credit, capital and more. Different communities face different challenges—but in every community, successful solutions depend on interested parties working together toward the same goal.

Our program supports communities in implementing practices that help drive successful outcomes: testing innovative approaches that move beyond isolated programs to transform local education and workforce systems, prioritizing data when making decisions, and engaging community members as partners in shaping solutions.

Advance Together is a collaborative effort led by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. External philanthropic partners provide grants for the participating communities, and a fiscal sponsor directly manages and distributes the funds.

The Dallas Fed does not provide funding for grants or participate in the selection of grantees.

Members of the Advance Together steering committee provide expertise on education and workforce issues. The committee manages the selection of grantees and resource development.

An independent evaluator provides assessment and feedback on the overall effectiveness of the Advance Together program and on grantees’ progress and outcomes.

Philanthropic partners provide funding for Advance Together grantees.

• Doris Duke Foundation
• Texas Mutual
• Trellis Foundation

Members include leaders who represent business, education, nonprofits, philanthropy and the public sector. They help ensure our program is well coordinated with state and local policy and related efforts across Texas.

Through our community development function, the Dallas Fed learned that, while many Texas communities are working to address economic challenges, local partnerships often lack the resources, technical knowledge and community connections they need to realize their full potential. This impedes their ability to make progress in reducing barriers to economic opportunity.

Drawing on our research and the experience of other Federal Reserve Banks, we engaged community partners to develop a solution—a way to strengthen collaborative efforts across Texas.

Advance Together launched in 2020 with an initial design phase involving nine community partnerships across Texas. Four of these moved forward to participate in our 2021–24 pilot round.

Learn more: Explore articles about the initiative

Over four years, four community partnerships received training, coaching and $375,000 in funding from philanthropic partners. This support helped them implement their plans and increase the impact of their programs.

Outcomes from the pilot round demonstrated the success of the Advance Together model. All participants made progress on their goals and attracted additional investment.

Watch: How pilot round participants are making a difference

Big Country Manufacturing Alliance (Abilene) is creating accessible pathways into well-paying manufacturing careers through training, recruitment and retention efforts.

Deep East Texas College and Career Alliance (Jasper) is helping rural and first-generation college students in attaining post-secondary credentials that are in demand by regional employers.

Education Partnership of the Permian Basin (Midland–Odessa) is developing a cradle-to-career continuum of support in the region by working to improve early childhood outcomes and college and career readiness.

Travis County 2-Gen Coalition (Austin) is expanding practices and policies to support dual generations of parents and children in education attainment and achieving long-term financial stability.

The Dallas Fed led the pilot round of the initiative and coordinated technical assistance for participants.

• Funders
  Communities Foundation of Texas
  Doris Duke Foundation
  The Kresge Foundation
  The Meadows Foundation
  Texas Mutual
• Fiscal sponsor
  The Dallas Foundation
• Evaluator
  Mt. Auburn Associates

Members of the steering committee provided expertise on education and workforce issues. The committee managed the selection of grantees and resource development.