Venn Community

We are excited to make this thought paper, authored by Dorothy Air and Henry Pavey, available to the Venn Community!

Be sure to ownload Navigating Partnerships in a Post-COVID World—How to Create and Leverage Better Partnerships in a Shifting Landscape. 

Once you've had a chance to review the paper, continue the conversation here. We'd love to hear your thoughts on any or all of the questions explored in the thought paper:

• What gains and losses have you experienced in your partnership work because of the pandemic? Are there items on each side of the list that provide insights about how to move forward?
  
  
• The spoken, known, but unspoken, and unknown categories are useful in considering leadership (for the leaders themselves and those who work with them). If you think about these elements in your context, what are the implications, and what needs to be addressed to improve partnerships? 
  
  
• Has the pandemic brought to the surface partnership goals that you have always aimed for? If so, has this affected your strategic focus? Has your lens on the ideal characteristics of partnerships changed in any other ways?
  
  
• Developers, Managers, and Leaders exist in all partnership contexts, even if they are not formally recognized or called by those terms. Who plays these roles in your partnerships? What is their expertise for this role? And is this role compatible with their other duties? Do any of the bulleted items listed above have implications for their work? 

Today's collaborative click is an exploration from The Brookings Institution of how, if we are mindful of the myths of prosperity and the power of simple narratives, we can ensure that the "new industrial policy" (represented by recent legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act) can benefit communities inclusively, by making the right linkages for local economic development. 

Creating inclusive economic opportunities from big innovation investments in industries and places requires intentional, sustained work–but it’s not rocket science. As pundits continue to ponder who will get political credit, leaders in business, government, higher education, and other sectors would do well to focus energy on a different question: How will we make sure the workers and entrepreneurs in local communities that need it most will see real and lasting benefits? (Read more.)

We're excited to be launching The Collaborative Effect, a new podcast from Venn Collaborative! 

What kind of impact do you want to have in the world? How can collaborating with others amplify that impact? Hear from folks in all walks of life and work about the impact that they want to have, and how partnerships and collaboration play a role. 

You may have seen the recent New York Times headline “Some Colleges Don’t Produce Big Earners. Are They Worth It?”  Some of the data for the article comes from studies by Third Way, a self-described center-left think tank.

The article mentions what we think is a powerful tool for helping to understand the contribution of universities and colleges to economic mobility, today's Collaborative Click: A New Way of Measuring Value in Higher Education. 

We also recommend you read the New York Times article for a well-rounded discussion of the issues. But a deep dive on the social mobility data at Third Way, we think, will greatly inform your institution's considerations of at least one aspect of its economic and community engagement efforts—the ways in which the institution support economic mobility. 

We are in dire need of a completely different approach to assessing institutions of higher education. Instead of prioritizing reputation and selectivity, we propose a new rating system known as the Economic Mobility Index (EMI) that attempts to answer the question: “If the primary purpose of postsecondary education is supposed to be to catalyze an increase in economic mobility, which schools are succeeding in that goal?” The following analysis is designed to give policymakers, researchers, and consumers a better way to assess which colleges are delivering on that promise for low- and moderate-income students—and which ones are falling woefully short. (Read more.)

• New York Times: Some Colleges Don’t Produce Big Earners. Are They Worth It?
• U.S. Department of Education: College Scorecard

Earlier this year, the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship celebrated National Entrepreneurship week with a series of great sessions, packed with tools and ideas for their community college members. The resources shared are likely helpful for any institution of higher education exploring its role in entrepreneurial ecosystem building. 

National Entrepreneurship Week democratizes entrepreneurship by empowering all voices of entrepreneruship across the country through education, connection, and collaboration. NACCE was thrilled to host events each day, in partnership with the entire #NatlEshipWeek ecosystem! (Read more.)

On August 18, we had a great conversation with Venn Collaborative's Tim Franklin of Franklin Solutions and his special guest Telly Tucker of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in this free webinar. Tim and Telly were joined by Venn Collaborative's Jim Woodell to explore the ways in which equitable growth and entrepreneurship are changing the ways we approach regional economic, workforce, and community development.

Here's the replay of that conversation. Please help us continue the discussion by clicking the comments button below and sharing your thoughts and further questions!

In 2015, Scott Reed, Lou Swanson, and Fred Schlutt summarized conversations that happened the previous September at a meeting of the Western Extension Directors Association. The conversations focused on how Cooperative Extension could be better link with missions and impact efforts across the university. They gave the summary a title—Timberline Manifesto—and other participants signed on to indicate their commitment to advancing the ideas. 

Though positioned within universities, Cooperative Extension Services don't have a history of linking
 effectively to other institutional missions. Extension's emergent role in engaging the entire university
 provides an opportunity to demonstrate leadership by growing a culture of engaged scholarship and
 involving matriculated students in Extension work. Other innovative connections can create or strengthen
 robust relationships between sources and applications of knowledge. This commentary reflects the views
 of 45 participants at an event designed to look forward toward Extension's second century. (Read more.) 

We love a framework. Most of the work that all of us are doing in community, economic, and workforce impact is messy, so frameworks are great because they help bring structure and clarity. Here's one from the National Fund for Workforce Solutions.

The Toolbox for the Systems Change Mindset is aimed at helping workforce practitioners and their regional partners better define the challenges they are working to resolve, and to apply systems thinking to work through possible solutions. 

Systems change can seem like a sea of choices and connections. You may be uncertain which decision to make and how to affect change. The toolbox simplifies systems change by framing it within broad principles. Use these insights to understand how systems work and how you can influence the systems you’re working within. The five principles of systems change are informed by theories of system thinking and the on-the-ground work of the National Fund’s regional collaboratives. Keep the principles in mind as you use the toolbox. (Read more.)