Marin education nonprofit gets $3M national grant

A San Rafael education nonprofit has received a $3 million grant over four years to support its work in coordinating neighborhood improvement plans in underserved areas.

Marin Promise Partnership, which collaborates with educators and community leaders to provide better education outcomes for youths, is one of three organizations in the country to receive the grant from StriveTogether, which is based in Cincinnati.

Jennifer Blatz, president and chief executive officer of StriveTogether, cited the Marin nonprofit’s work last year in launching the Canal Promise Neighborhood program. Similar “promise neighborhood” projects exist in communities throughout the country.

“From strengthening supports in local communities, to advancing statewide policies that center young people, their work connects systems to better serve children and families,” Blatz said.

The investment “will accelerate their strategies and expand the opportunities available to young people across Marin County,” Blatz said.

Richard Raya, chief executive of Marin Promise Partnership, said the grant will allow the organization to complete work on the Canal five-year plan by the end of this year.

“It’s hard work and intense work,” Raya said. “We’re looking at all the data, and all the strategies, and reviewing what’s already been done. We’re trying to marry that with a new vision going forward.”

The grant will allow the nonprofit to launch a neighborhood planning process in Marin City this spring, and neighborhoods in Novato and West Marin will follow, Raya said. The grant will allow the 12-employee nonprofit to add staff or hire community partners in the neighborhoods on a contract basis to help.

“With all the national turbulence, it’s good to know we’re doing something right at the local level and that we can develop it further,” Raya said. The work also fits in with the focus of Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers on targeting help where it is needed, he said.

“Longstanding educational inequities in Marin persist, especially in communities like San Rafael, Marin City, Novato and West Marin, where families are navigating barriers like poverty, housing instability and fragmented systems,” Raya said. “Promise Neighborhoods are designed to address these interconnected challenges.”

The grant comes about a year after Marin Promise Partnership received funding from the Marin Community Foundation and the Aspen Institute to start the neighborhood planning process in the Canal area.

“What began five years ago as a collective response to the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 in the Canal neighborhood has grown into stronger collaboration, trust and a shared understanding of the inextricable link between educational outcomes and economic stability across generations,” said Chandra Alexandre, chief executive officer of Community Action Marin and a Marin Promise Partnership leader.

“People know what they need to have dignified and thriving lives,” Alexandre said. “The power of community voices informing and working alongside government, school districts and community-based organizations is the way to ensure that transformation happens.”

Rhea Suh, president and chief executive officer of the Marin Community Foundation, said, “If Marin is ever going to be an equitable, united county, it’s imperative that its underserved communities are acknowledged, understood and given the opportunities they deserve to thrive.”

“Critical support like this grant, which allows neighbors to come together, mobilize on their own terms and build power from within, is an important step in changing the system,” she said.