Local community, place-based opportunity ecosystems – made up of public and nonprofit organizations working across systems such as education, health and workforce development – hold enormous promise in advancing social and economic mobility.

Through our Place-Based Opportunity Ecosystems strategy we focus on advancing racial equity and supporting cross-sector efforts anchored by public and nonprofit human services organizations to improve the way systems work and create the circumstances for families to thrive.

We seek to understand what it takes to strengthen cross-sector, person-centered systems change while dismantling historically racist institutional and structural barriers, and to embrace an outcomes orientation focused on advancing social and economic mobility through a two-generation approach.

Understanding local context and intentionally engaging community residents are essential in this effort.

All ecosystems are different, and to help understand how an ecosystem functions and its impact, Kresge and the American Public Human Service Association developed an Ecosystem Readiness Tool that measures six readiness factors against the Human Service Value Curve.

To share information and insights, our place-based opportunity ecosystem partners establish ongoing peer learning across sites with the shared North Star of advancing social and economic mobility.