View the L.A. Compact Partnership Agreement
The signing partners of the L.A. Compact came together in 2008 out of a shared belief that no single program or organization can singlehandedly solve the complex, large-scale education and workforce readiness problems facing our region.
Recognizing the scale of the education challenges in Los Angeles, L.A. Compact partners have committed to break away from their traditional silos and to focus on collaborative and innovative strategies to achieve five system-wide goals for Los Angeles youth:
- All children are healthy and ready to succeed in school;
- All students graduate from high school;
- All students complete postsecondary education;
- Students of all ages acquire skills and knowledge to achieve career success;
- and All children and young adults thrive socially and emotionally and contribute positively to the community.
Today, 24 leading L.A. organizations and institutions make up the L.A. compact and have committed to these big, audacious, systemic goals. Compact signers include: LAUSD and the Board of Education; the Mayor and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors; L.A. County Office of Education (LACOE); United Way of Greater Los Angeles; First 5 LA; Associated Administrators of Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC); Los Angeles Community College District; and four-year Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs). The L.A. compact also engages dozens of other partner organizations through collaborative initiatives, including United Teachers Los Angeles, nonprofits working for early childhood education and foster youth, and major businesses like Boeing, Bank of America and Kaiser Permanente.
L.A. Compact and the Multi-Convener, Constellation Structure for Collective Impact
By working collaboratively towards the same goals and using a multi-convener constellation governance structure to achieve collective impact, the individual efforts of L.A. Compact partners add up to big changes for the future of young people in Los Angeles. The L.A. Compact leverages the unique strengths and organizational capacity of collective impact partners to advance student outcomes through a constellation of collaborative working groups. Each workgroup has formed to tackle a critical issue along the cradle-to-career pipeline. In the L.A. Compact's early years, UNITE-LA served as the primary convener of these workgroups. As the L.A. compact expanded, it evolved to adopt a multi-convener model, with different agencies stepping forward to provide convening support to a constellation of individual workgroups.
The Convener plays a critical role in this constellation governance model. Conveners act as servant leaders, helping partner agencies leverage resources, coordinate services, improve policies and build bridges between siloed systems in order to produce better outcomes for the youth of L.A., from cradle to career. As the overall Convener of the L.A. Compact, UNITE-LA provides staffing support to several L.A. Compact workgroups, while also facilitating connections and strategies across workgroups to ensure that we're all rowing in the same direction.