KnowledgeWorks launched Strive in 2006 by bringing together broad coalitions in the Greater Cincinnati community chiefly concerned about providing a successful future for children with an eye on building strong cities. This unique partnership of educators, nonprofits, philanthropies, elected officials and businesses was formed to help each child in our urban core succeed from the time they are born, through some form of higher education and into a meaningful career. Strive’s innovative but practical approach focuses on home, school and community as the DNA that creates a successful society. In just three years, the success of Strive in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky region has gained the attention of other urban communities throughout the United States and will serve as a national model.

Strive operates from a set of five core beliefs:

• Education must be holistic, because what happens outside of school is just important as what happens inside of school;


• Education providers must be accountable and make decisions based on data;


• Education is a cradle to career endeavor, and that working together is key to eliminating the “cracks” that children might fall through;


• Education must be fair so that every child, regardless of circumstance, can find the support they need to achieve their dreams.


• Education providers must work more collaboratively to create efficiencies and continually improve effectiveness.

By combing through extensive research, Strive created a framework, the Student’s Roadmap to Success, which provided milestones, or transition points, in a child’s life of entering kindergarten, moving from elementary to middle school, from middle to high school, high school to college or career training and from college freshman to sophomore are often points that determine whether or not a child is successful in school and in life.

This roadmap has been instrumental in providing insight about how child development, poverty, access to health care and other factors affect the future success of children. It also offers key stakeholders the information they need to adequately identify problems and correct them.

The success of Strive in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky region has gained attention from other urban communities across the nation. Based on this interest to create similar collaborative initiatives in other metropolitan regions, Living Cities, a national philanthropic collaboration of more than 15 of the largest foundations and funding institutions in the world, has brought Strive together with the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities in order to support the adaptation of a cradle-to-career community collaboration for student success and achievement in other cities.