2016 PASSNYC Collective Impact Summit

PASSNYC started its Collective Impact Summit to make it easier for educational service providers to work together.  A central tenet of our partnership efforts, collective impact exists to tackle the issues that are too challenging for a few organizations to take on alone.   

We’re all taught about the importance of teamwork.  Sharing is caring, teamwork makes the dream work, and so on.  Accomplishing the most challenging goals becomes possible when teams of people work together.  

While many organizations embrace teamwork internally, getting different organizations to work together is frequently easier said than done.  It’s hard to even talk about collaboration in New York City education.  

We first learned of collective impact through our work with our partner the Harlem Renaissance Education Pipeline (HREP).  Serving on their design team for over a year, we assisted HREP in their successful application to become a StriveTogether Cradle to Career network member.

It’s abundantly clear why collective impact is necessary to create successful Cradle to Career civic infrastructure.  It’s less clear why the same principles are not more widely used throughout New York City education.  

PASSNYC believes in collaboration for the sake of collaboration.  We are not pushing a product, nor a network of schools, and our approach is by no means new.  More organizations need to work together to do better for more underserved families.   

Our First Collective Impact Summit focused on networking, collaboration, and new solutions.  We gathered talented and passionate individuals and challenged them to work together in a short period of time.  We are overjoyed that the Summit was a tremendous success.  

43 organizations represented at the summit

A very enjoyable morning

Hosted at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, our First Collective Impact Summit brought together 50 attendees from over 40 different organizations on Friday, October 14, 2016.  A breakfast through lunch affair, participants got to hear from Dr. Hazel Dukes of the NAACP, and Harold O. Levy of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, before completing our Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking and Collective Impact Boot Camp activities.   

Dr. Hazel Dukes, President, NAACP NYS

Harold. O. Levy, Executive Director, JKCF

Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking activity

We will be releasing a report later this year to commemorate the event and to share the wonderful new ideas we were able to collect from these activities.

Although the thoughts shared are empowering, the overwhelmingly positive feedback we have received since has been truly inspirational.  

results of Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking activity 

Results of Collective Impact Boot Camp Activity

Thanks to all of the organizations and PASSNYC partners that attended for making the event so productive!  We are deeply indebted to the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Locus Analytics, the NYS Conference of the NAACP, and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation for enabling us to host the Summit.

Team Brooklyn Tech hard at work during the Collective Impact Boot Camp

A delicious lunch at Sisters' Caribbean cuisine

Special thanks to Akil Bello, Max Brawer, Brendan Feng, Derek Jones, Diana McKeage, Bridgette Roberts, Rande Rogers, Monika Wysocki, Tarek Aryani, and the rest of the PASSNYC team for all of their hard work and dedication!  You all continue to make dreams come true!