Economic Mobility Learning Series: Promise Partnership Utah
Community Impact
The Economic Mobility Learning Series serves as part of Greater Houston Community Foundation’s ongoing work to convene leaders, share knowledge, and spark informed conversation around Houston’s most pressing challenges.
What does it take to create real pathways to economic opportunity and youth economic mobility—and what can Houston learn from communities already doing the work?
In this Economic Mobility Learning Series, Greater Houston Community Foundation and Understanding Houston welcomed AmyAhrens Terpstra, Managing Director for Promise Partnership Utah, for a conversation on leading collective impact, cross-sector collaboration, and cradle-to-career outcomes that help young people achieve long-term economic mobility.
Promise Partnership Utah is a collective impact model focused on youth economic mobility. It works to align organizations, institutions, and individuals around one shared goal: ensuring every young person has the opportunity to achieve economic mobility. Their work offers a compelling example of how aligned strategies and collective action can drive measurable progress.
Table of Contents
- Advancing Economic Mobility in Houston Through Collective Impact
- Watch the Webinar Featuring Promise Partnership Utah
- Key Takeaways for Advancing Economic Opportunity in Houston
- Join an Upcoming Economic Mobility Learning Series Webinar
- Explore Previous Economic Mobility Learning Series Speakers and Models
Advancing Economic Mobility in Houston Through Collective Impact
The Economic Mobility Learning Series serves as part of Greater Houston Community Foundation’s ongoing work to convene leaders, share knowledge, and spark informed conversation around Houston’s most pressing challenges. The series supports donor learning, philanthropic leadership, and community investment by convening leaders from across the country to explore evidence-informed strategies for economic mobility in Houston. Through events, learning opportunities, and thought leadership, the Community Foundation continues to bring together donors, community organizations, and community stakeholders to explore ideas shaping the future of our region.
Watch the Webinar Featuring Promise Partnership Utah
Key Takeaways for Advancing Economic Opportunity in Houston
Below are key takeaways from the conversation—insights designed to inform and support Houston’s donors, partners, and leaders working to expand opportunity across our region.
A backbone role is essential to coordinate the work. Amy framed the cross-sector coordination it leads like a professional football team, which cannot succeed without coaching staff coordinating strategy and tracking stats. Collective, cross-sector efforts are the same and function best with a backbone entity that is aligning the players.
Shared accountability must replace the blame game. Amy shared that every sector tends to point to another sector even while agreeing “it’s all of our responsibility” in the abstract. Real progress requires partners to hold themselves, collectively, accountable for the outcomes.
Big goals get more workable when you shrink the numbers. When Promise Partnership Utah tackled refugee student graduation rates, the percentage alone felt overwhelming. However, when translated into actual numbers, around 200 students, the problem felt solvable and led to concrete, practical fixes.
Large-scale progress takes time to achieve, so it is important to celebrate small wins along the way. Outcomes like third grade reading or graduation rates are generational and slow-moving, and partners can lose motivation if data is the only measure of success. Recognizing programming and partner wins and progress on leading indicators can help keep people engaged for the long term.
Alignment often costs less than starting from scratch. Rather than requiring large new investments, a lot of work can be focused on redirecting resources that already exist. For example, an organization that already does strong data work can focus capacity on the partnership’s shared priorities.
Join an Upcoming Economic Mobility Learning Series Webinar
Greater Houston Community Foundation invites you to join our Economic Mobility Learning Series, which are virtual presentations and discussions on models that advance economic mobility, featuring proven and emerging approaches from across the nation.
Each online seminar will explore real-world cross-sector efforts and research that will help individuals and families move up the economic ladder. This virtual series is open to anyone, including Houston donors and nonprofit leaders, interested in learning about and exploring ideas that could inform efforts to improve economic mobility in Houston, including:
- Nonprofit, philanthropic, public sector, and civic leaders working on economic mobility or related issues.
- Funders and donors interested in learning about evidence-informed strategies and models that advance economic mobility.
- Researchers, practitioners, and community leaders who are curious about what’s working, and why, in other regions.
Explore Previous Economic Mobility Learning Series Speakers and Models
Child Action Poverty Lab
Learn from a nationally recognized organization, Child Action Poverty Lab, that serves as an unofficial research and development engine for the Dallas region, connecting public systems, community organizations, and neighborhoods to use data-driven, human-centered design approaches to break cycles of intergenerational poverty.
Leading on Opportunity
Understand how Leading on Opportunity in Charlotte, North Carolina uses strategy, policy, and data to advance economic mobility across the region it serves. Leading on Opportunity is an entity of the Foundation For The Carolinas that supports Charlotte on its generations-long journey to improve economic mobility for all.
Prosperity Initiative
Gain insights from the Prosperity Initiative, a regional model from Pima County/Tucson, Arizona, which demonstrates how government and community can work together to reduce generational poverty cycles.
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- 2026 Community Impact Showcase
- Houston Opportunity Scholarship
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