Collaboration is essential to collective impact and systems change; however, the “how to” manual on effective and efficient collaboration has yet to be written.  Furthermore, foundations and funders expect collaboration across nonprofits, government, and business eco-systems, which can be complicated at best and messy at worst.  As a backbone organization and convener, the L.A. Compact fills this “how to” knowledge gap so collaborative partners can focus on driving sustainable impact within the cradle-to-career pipeline and create long term systems change as a result. 

Examples of the L.A. Compact joint funding successes:

• On October 29, 2015, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the Obama Administration selected L.A. as a Performance Partnership Pilot for Disconnected Youth (P3) a designation that allows local and state governments to pilot improved ways of assisting disconnected youth with federal dollars.  The L.A. Compact supported the City's P3 application and will be a lead partner in its implementation.  This status gives agencies added flexibility in the use of discretionary funds across multiple federal programs.  The designation comes with a $700,000 grat to fund a planning effort - led by the City's Economic & Workforce Development Department - that will bring together local and federal agencies to provide wraparound services to improve education, employment, and social outcomes for youth with a history of homelessness, chronic school absenteeism, or involvement in the child welfare and criminal justice systems.

• In 2014, LAUSD and eight Schools of Education signed a landmark MOU to share student, candidate and teacher data in order to investigate best practices and drive continuous improvement in educator preparation, placement, and induction.  In 2015, the Los Angeles Educator Pathways Partnership convened a working group to identify potential funding opportunities to facilitate the data sharing work agreed to by the LAEPP partners.  The group jointly applied for four different grants, and were recently awarded a $250K grant by the Bechtel Foundation.

• In 2010, the L.A. Compact partners jointly submitted a proposal and won a $5 million federal i3 grant to implement the Public School Choice process, engage parents in school reform, and provide support to PSC schools through the formation of the Los Angeles School Development Institute.  The compact proposal was selected from a pool of 1,700 applications from all over the country, aiming to support about 60,000 students at some of the district's lowest achieving schools.