our story
connection. community. collaboration.
In 2011, fifteen New York City nonprofit leaders began gathering organically to connect and discuss their biggest challenges - the things that kept them up at night. What once began as informal dinner discussions among Executive Directors evolved into a clear initiative driven by a vision of using meaningful, shared measures to learn from one another and ultimately strengthen their collective impact.
At the time, the focus was social emotional learning (SEL) - an area at the heart of our work that often went unrecognized. Student Success Network officially formed in 2013 to become a vehicle for Network organizations to (1) measure SEL development and (2) identify and share effective practices to enhance SEL competencies critical for postsecondary success. While the SEL survey marked the foundation of our Network, our work didn’t just stay there.
a renewed opportunity
As the Network built trust with one another, we realized we could increase our impact further by working together to address the shared beliefs that, as a larger nonprofit community,
We are not measuring what we know truly matters for student success, and
We are often missing opportunities to learn from each other’s strengths and challenges.
So many of our NYC nonprofit organizations are in service of a similar end goal: student success. Yet, how we define it is not always clear, complete or aligned. Further, there is a gap between what we measure to demonstrate program success and how we actually think about student success, especially when we factor in the abundance of measurement tools, external funder expectations and the natural evolution of the education field. NYC nonprofits live in the communities and spaces that are most impacted by equity gaps, and therefore, we are well-positioned to close these gaps when we come together.
We have always operated on the premise that the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution. We elevate practitioner and youth expertise in our process because we know the assets exist there to drive our collective pursuit of equitable outcomes for students. As the ground continues to shift under us and student needs and goals evolve, we have a renewed opportunity to, once again, leverage a networked approach to come to a shared definition of success, highlight the outcomes that matter, and codify and scale the practices that actually work.
our work
Over the last 10+ years, we have continued to listen and respond to our Network’s experiences to address the needs, challenges and changes of the educational landscape in NYC. Thus, our focus is ever-evolving to the field, but we are always in support and service of student success. In the last decade, this has been demonstrated through our response to priorities identified by our Network in real-time:
