Impact Report: Community Collaboration Challenge 2023-2024

The Partnership for Student Success (PSS), based at the Johns Hopkins University Everyone Graduates Center, is the organizer of a coalition of nonprofits, higher education institutions, and school districts working to enable all students to get the evidence-based supports they need to succeed.

The work of PSS began in 2022 through a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of Education, AmeriCorps, and the Johns Hopkins University Everyone Graduates Center–The National Partnership for Student Success (NPSS). Over 2.5 years, NPSS successfully supported the field to bring an estimated 323,000 additional adults into evidence-based roles supporting P-12 students as tutors, mentors, college and career advisors, and roles providing or coordinating wraparound student supports.

One of the PSS’ signature programs, the Community Collaboration Challenge (CCC) is a competitive funding opportunity that awards $5,000–$10,000 to communities seeking to launch, pilot, or expand evidence-based P-12 student supports, with a particular focus on tutoring, mentoring, student success coaching, postsecondary transition coaching, and wraparound/integrated supports. Funding local connector events and small pilot programs allows the CCC to catalyze action and builds momentum for sustainable, locally driven student support solutions that can be replicated across a range of educational settings. By breaking down silos between the various stakeholders that support youth and building upon existing community assets, communities are creating enabling conditions for local collaboration between school districts, nonprofits, higher education institutions, and state/local government to work together to provide all students with the evidence-based, people-powered supports they need to succeed.