Investing in Tacoma: Designing with Community

Friends and Colleagues,

As we roll out an important investment in the Tacoma community, we have already learned so much from leaders in the Graduate Tacoma movement who bring a wealth of expertise working with young people every day.

Last month’s info-sessions helped us further refine key components to the grant and subgranting process. We recorded a number of your questions, so that you can revisit our responses here. In a brief community survey, you also helped us better understand Tacoma’s greatest funding needs in order to strengthen our collective capacity to offer the best support possible to families.

We likewise began drafting an investment framework at this year’s All-CAN Partner Retreat (click here to see the outline). Community partners discussed what they considered key aspects of a learning agenda to guide our path to systems change. This discussion is sure to be the first of many conversations.

This summer has been a time of information gathering, insight collecting and a lot of listening. Your feedback has been critical to the design of this investment and our next steps. In the months ahead, you will hear from the Foundation for Tacoma Students again.

  • We will share the subgranting process and further clarity on the Learning Communities associated with each investment area later this fall.
  • Keep an eye out for an invitation to learn about the formal RFP process at a second series of info-sessions.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in this community-informed design process! We are inspired every day by your commitment to taking collective action for Tacoma youth.

 

Sincerely,


Tafona Ervin, Ed. M
Executive Director
Foundation for Tacoma Students