https://www.fcd-us.org/blog-3-ways-funders-can-facilitate-systems-change/
Put yourself in the shoes of a student who speaks another language — an American-born child of immigrants in Los Angeles, an “unaccompanied minor” who recently arrived in Phoenix, a child of refugees in a rural town in Maine. What is their daily experience like? How are our early learning sites and schools set up to support them? How are our educators equipped to help them achieve their biggest, boldest dreams for the future—essential for our nation to thrive?
At Sobrato Philanthropies, we regularly ask ourselves these questions in our education program, which focuses on English learners or multilingual learners in California’s education system. Nationally, 33% of children under age five are multilingual learners, as they are learning their home language and English at the same time. Among older students in kindergarten to 12th grade, 10% receive English language support to learn. In California, these statistics are significantly higher: 60% and 19%, respectively.
Our work in this area began in 2008, when we launched the Sobrato Early Academic Language model (SEAL) in Silicon Valley, inspired by the pioneering scholarship of the late Dr. Ruby Takanishi, former president of the Foundation for Child Development. At a time when the state discouraged bilingual education in schools, we sought to show a different path: one that puts multilingual learners at the center to benefit all students. SEAL is now the standard in many schools throughout California, and we have turned our attention to the policies and systems that create an enabling environment for these practices to take root. That includes policy and systems grantmaking at the state and regional levels.
We have learned much about what it takes to facilitate systems change. Reflecting on our journey to date, we offer three lessons from our funder perspective to spark conversations about what social justice can look like and the tools philanthropy can deploy to get there.
Lesson 1: Coalitions of diverse partners are powerful vehicles for advancing shared priorities.
No single organization, no matter how successful its track record, can achieve equity in a complex system on its own. Coalitions and networks are essential. These spaces allow partners to build and deepen relationships, develop a shared analysis of the opportunities and challenges, align strategies and actions across organizations, and track progress along the way.
Since 2019, Sobrato has funded several coalitions to champion multilingual learners. We have learned that transformative coalitions:
- engage partners with different perspectives — policy advocates, researchers, community organizers, education practitioners, and others — around a core set of issues that come directly from the communities most impacted by inequity.
- prioritize backbone functions — which funders must resource — including project management, partner coordination, and meeting facilitation. The most effective coalitions count on strong project managers to keep the group focused and aligned.
Collective action is a game-changing strategy, but funders must approach this work with care.
It is important to allow time on the front end for partners to get to know each other and build trust, especially if they have not worked together before. Partners can also assess as a group whether a new coalition is actually needed and would add value, given that they likely are participating in several networks already. As funders, we need to resource facilitation support to help the organizations make important early decisions — for example, what their shared goals and priorities are, how they will make decisions jointly, and how they will be inclusive of all voices. Core principles for equity-centered collaboration can make it easier for all kinds of organizations, big and small, to bring their diverse knowledge, capacities, and relationships to the coalition.
One successful effort: When California adopted the Master Plan for Early Learning and Care in 2020, a 10-year roadmap for building a comprehensive and equitable early learning system statewide, our grantees and their collaborators saw a critical opportunity to play a role in its implementation. They formed Dual Language Learner Advocacy Partnership, a coalition that educates policymakers about priorities to serve young multilingual learners. Led by Catalyst California and Early Edge California, the group convenes 15 partners representing business, higher education, the public sector, grassroots organizations, and advocates from the Asian American, Black, and Latino/a communities.
They come together to learn, strategize, consult with families and educators, and take action. Previously, these organizations were leading essential efforts separately. Now, they lean on each other and draw on their collective capacity to have a shared voice on the future of early childhood education in California.
Lesson 2: Research connected to policy and practice is a key ingredient for systems change.
Research has always shed light on the way forward.
While traditional forms of research are important to grow a field’s knowledge of effective practices, our partners are calling for a different form of research — one rooted in community experiences, responding to timely questions for decision-making, and guided by the leaders and organizations who will use it to make change happen.
This model calls on researchers to show up differently, be engaged in community spaces, and share power with others outside the university walls to define and carry out a research agenda. Funders have a role in encouraging this model.
Sobrato has engaged multiple researchers in California and nationally. We have found that because researchers are not typically trained to work with advocates and policymakers, they may not be familiar with the types of information these audiences need. Understanding the state’s fast-paced legislative calendar and process can be a hurdle as well. So, first, we invest in new and existing partnerships that bring researchers into the room with advocates and educators, both to build relationships and to craft joint research projects on multilingual learners.
Second, we know that the field needs more researchers who come from historically marginalized communities and are committed to having an impact on policy and practice. The Foundation for Child Development’s Young Scholars Program is one model for giving a platform to emerging research voices who share in this commitment, such as 2016 participant Dr. Carola Oliva-Olson, vice president of early childhood studies and faculty member at our grantee EDvance College.
The third step is connecting research to policy and practice. For example, Sobrato supported Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a university-affiliated research center, to conduct new research on recent immigrant or newcomer students. PACE convened a small group of research, policy, and practice experts in 2021 to address pressing questions about the newcomer experience in California schools. The result: a convening with partners in Sacramento to take stock of the research, a series of policy briefs to disseminate findings, and technical assistance for school districts to put these findings to work.
For us as funders, a lesson here is to follow the evolution of research from idea to action: more research is valuable, but the field needs support to absorb and apply it as well.
Lesson 3: Aspirational narratives fuel our work for the long term.
In education, multilingual learners sit at the crossroads of debates about language, culture, and identity; race and systemic inequality; and immigration and economic opportunity. To advocate for multilingual learners means grappling with narratives — beliefs and mental models — about immigrants and students of color in our schools. Though not the dominant message yet, we increasingly see narratives today that define our children’s home languages as gifts to nurture, that welcome immigrant students and families as members of our community. We aim to uplift these positive, strength-based narratives to make lasting change possible.
Positive narratives can be crafted and spread using narrative-change strategies. We sought to learn about such strategies after our partners pointed out a frustrating gap: California has enacted good policies to support multilingual learners in recent years, but progress in schools is slow-going and our students are not yet experiencing the benefits from these shifts. Why? According to the research on systems change, part of the answer lies in our dominant mental models, which need to change for all of us to see more efficient progress.
To unpack the implications for us, we consulted with experts nationally and learned about exciting initiatives, including the Butterfly Lab’s research on immigrant narratives, The California Endowment’s narrative strategy for health and racial equity, and the Civil Marriage Collaborative’s “love is love” campaign. Inspired, we added new elements to Sobrato’s approach:
- deeper investments in storytelling,
- more opportunities for building communications capacity, and
- support for partners to grow narrative infrastructure
Narrative work has the potential to create bridges across issues and spark new cross-sector collaborations.
For example, our grantee Youth Leadership Institute is training high school students in Fresno to capture and share their experiences as multilingual learners. Their first digital magazine, Living in Two Languages, showcases stories of joy, creativity, struggle, and perseverance as these students navigate multiple worlds, in school and at home. And now, others — from advocates to policymakers — can see through their eyes and make important decisions.
See our 2023 brief for more ideas and resources about narrative as a tool in grantmaking.
Looking Forward
Given the inspiring and exciting shifts we have seen so far at Sobrato, we will continue to create more venues for our partners from different backgrounds and communities to imagine together what school could be for our multilingual learners and all students. The kind of deep, systemic, and sustainable change we aspire to see in California (and beyond) can only be achieved by a whole sector of organizations and leaders leveraging their unique strengths and assets toward a common goal. We invite other funders and colleagues to join us in this important work.
This is the third blog in the Foundation’s Social Justice for Young Children Conversation Series exploring what it means to pursue social justice for young children and their families.
About the Authors
Robert Medina is Director of the English Learner Program at Sobrato Philanthropies, where he works to advance systems change in the education system for English Learners in California.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Robert was a Senior Consultant at Education First, a national education strategy and policy consulting firm. In this role, he advised foundations, school districts, state agencies, and nonprofits on their efforts across a broad spectrum of education issues. Previously, as Senior Program Manager in The Aspen Institute’s Planning and Evaluation Program, he conducted evaluations of advocacy and policy change campaigns in the United States and internationally.
Doua Thor is currently the Vice President, Strategy and Influence at Sobrato Philanthropies. Prior to this Doua was the Director of the English Learner Program. In her current role, she manages many of the foundation’s cross organizational programming and oversees the English Learner Program as well as the Family Initiatives and New Opportunities work.
Previously, she served as an advisor to the Asian American and Pacific Islander Civic Engagement Fund and most recently was a political appointee in the Obama Administration as the Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.