Over the past 10 years, 5,000+ local agencies, organizations and institutions and 100+ sector- and field-leading organizations and affiliate networks have joined with the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (CGLR) to ensure that children in economically disadvantaged families can succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career and active citizenship.

Our 2010 founding partners – America’s Promise Alliance, Council for a Strong America, National Civic League, National League of Cities and United Way Worldwide – have stayed the course and self-identified as partners and champions of CGLR’s mission and work. Among them, United Way Worldwide and its nationwide network have played a critical role. Our implementation partners have proven equally steadfast; thank you to Attendance Works; Clear Impact; National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials; National Summer Learning Association; and Vision To Learn.

As we kicked off GLR Week 2021: Bright Spots and Silver Linings, we acknowledged the contributions of CGLR’s many partners, with a special salute to United Way Worldwide and United Ways across the nation for their leadership and support.

Speakers

• Keynote Speaker: Suzanne McCormick, U.S. President, United Way Worldwide

• Kate Bennett, Community Impact Officer-Education, United Way of Central Iowa

• Hedy Chang, Executive Director, Attendance Works
• Jennifer Deemer, Vice President of Community Impact, United Way of Wyoming Valley
• Dawn Gerundo, Community Development and Engagement Director, Valley of the Sun United Way
• Tricia Johnson, Director of Education Initiatives, United Way of Greater Kansas City
• Kayla Klein, Black Hills Reads Director, United Way of the Black Hills
• Corinne Kroger, Iowa Regional Director, Vision To Learn
• Doug Linkhart, President, National Civic League
• Ken Livingston, Director, Get Delaware Reading, United Way of Delaware (invited)
• Susan Patrick, Director of Childhood Success, United Way of Southwest Virginia

• Jill Pereira, Vice President-Education and Impact, United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley

• Adrianna Cuéllar Rojas, President and CEO, United Ways of Texas
• Amy Ahrens Terpstra, Vice President of Collective Impact Partnerships, United Way of Salt Lake
• Ralph Smith, Managing Director, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
• Becky Miles-Polka, Senior Consultant, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

Educators are deciding how best to reestablish disrupted routines such as everyday attendance, to rebuild the relationships for resilient school communities, and to center the teaching and learning enterprise in a way that prioritizes protecting the health and overall well-being of students and staff alike. Most educators are adamant that a simple return to the pre-pandemic status quo is not an option. The objective is to do better, much better, in creating the conditions for learning and thriving for every child.

CGLR applauds the embrace of the “build back better” imperative. Just as the pandemic laid bare longstanding inequities, adapting to the pandemic has unveiled different ways of working, teaching and learning that could contribute to a better “new normal.” Featuring a panel of exceptional national leaders, this conversation seeks to illuminate how some of the “both-and” decisions that educators make could translate these bright spots, silver linings and potential post-pandemic keepers into pathways toward both accelerating equitable recovery and promoting longer-term transformative systems change.

Speakers

• Linda Darling-Hammond, Ed.D., President and CEO, Learning Policy Institute
• Karen Mapp, Faculty Director, Education Policy and Management Master’s Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Sal Khan, Founder and CEO, Khan Academy
• Rey Saldana, President and CEO, Communities In Schools
• John Gomperts  Executive Fellow, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Former President and CEO, America’s Promise Alliance, Moderator

The Patterson Foundation’s initiatives emphasize embracing and optimizing the benefits of technology to strengthen its work. When COVID-19 hit in spring 2020, The Patterson Foundation (TPF) paused for a moment to understand how individuals, organizations and communities were moving through the three distinct phases of disaster recovery: cope, adapt and innovate. Digital access emerged as a basic necessity to connect to a variety of services — including those related to education, health, employment and other vital needs — that had increasingly shifted to an online environment. In June 2020, TPF created Digital Access for All (DA4A) to explore the efforts of multiple sectors working together to enhance access to technology to connect people in ways that foster inclusion and well-being.

In this session, learn how “more than money philanthropy” guided TPF’s DA4A initiative from concept to community collaboration within the span of one year. Hear from the DA4A team and community partners how digital access is being addressed throughout the Suncoast region of Florida and beyond.

Speakers

• Cheri Coryea, Consultant, Digital Access for All, The Patterson Foundation
• John Ferguson, Fellow, The Patterson Foundation
• Jake Hartvigsen, Consultant, Digital Access for All, The Patterson Foundation
• Kiarra Louis, Consultant, Digital Access for All, The Patterson Foundation
• Maribel Martinez, Consultant, Digital Access for All, The Patterson Foundation

• Margie Genter, Vice President of Mission Services, Goodwill Manasota

• Lori Aberle Gentile, Director of Client Services, Women’s Resource Center

• Lisbeth Oscuvilca, Family Engagement Director, UnidosNow

This spring, eight leading philanthropic organizations joined to form The Care for All with Respect and Equity (CARE) Fund, a $50 million, multiyear investment in transformational change to support a broad-based movement for care that includes paid leave, child care and early education, long-term services and supports for older adults and people with disabilities, and high-quality jobs for care workers. The unprecedented public demand for a comprehensive care infrastructure is a “silver lining” of COVID-19.

Leaders from three of the CARE Fund partners share how they are pooling their resources, the steps they have taken to date and their emerging future plans as they seek to build a movement for a universal publicly supported care infrastructure that will improve outcomes for kids, fuel the economy, promote equity and enable people with disabilities and older adults to live independently with safety and dignity. They also discuss the ways in which local funders can align their efforts and investments toward the goal of strengthening the care infrastructure and share some new tools that can assist local funders in this work.

Speakers

• Melissa A. Berman, Ph.D., President and CEO, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Moderator
• Traci Slater-Rigaud, Director of Member Engagement & Partnerships, United Philanthropy Forum, Introductions
• Barbara Chow, Education Program Director, Heising-Simons Foundation
• Erin Currier, Program Officer, Family Economic Security, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
• Anna Wadia, Senior Program Officer, Future of Work(ers), Ford Foundation