Our History

Year: 2012 | Community Summit

In 2012, our community convened for a day long Summit to analyze data from the inaugural LIFE Study and align on actions to improve it. At the end of the Summit, one of the Top 5 Priorities which emerged was to improve our “Cradle-to-Career” systems.

Year: 2014

Achieve Brown County Launches in 2014. The Community Leadership Council hired our first Executive Director, Adam Hardy, while simultaneously applying to be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization so that our Collective Impact Partnership could remain independent and neutral in bringing sectors, leaders and community members together from across our community.

Years: 2014-2016

Partners learned about collective impact and aligned on youth outcomes to measure. Donated project managers from Schreiber Foods were used to facilitate Outcome Teams around each youth outcome we were measuring. Their goal was simple; to identify key actions that the community could take to improve the outcome they were tasked to analyze. By 2016, partners had identified key actions to move forward with through their root cause analysis and were ready to take their research into action.

Years: 2016-2019

During this period of time, we launched our first Collaborative Action Teams. Three teams launched around three youth outcome areas: Early Childhood System of Care formed to improve Kindergarten Readiness, Graduation Task Force formed to improve High School Graduation and FAFSA+ formed to improve Post-Secondary Enrollment. Each of these teams focused on a single factor approach to improving their youth outcome and were supported by a full-time Facilitator, a part-time Data Manager and six AmeriCorps VISTA Members.

In 2019, our Collective Impact Partnership also experienced our first leadership transition. Near the end of 2019, our Community Leadership Council hired our second Executive Director, Spencer Bonnie.

Years: 2020-2021

The year 2020 shifted priorities for organizations across the globe and this was no different for Achieve Brown County. Our work to launch into Collaborative Action paused. Our Backbone Team used their role as conveners, facilitators and supporters to support our Partners through change. Three teams launched and included Digital Access, Supporting Our Students and Covid Response. Achieve Brown County also received funding during this time to develop and launch an interactive Covid Response map.

In summer 2021, two Partners, Brown County Library and Green Bay Area Public Schools, approached our Backbone Team and asked our Backbone Team to rally our community to take action to improve third grade reading. We launched a new Reading Success Summit Planning team and worked with leaders to begin planning a literacy summit to share data and create a call to action.

As things began to return to normal in fall 2021, our Board of Directors sought the organization’s next Executive Director when our second leadership transition took place.

Years: 2022-2023

Our Board of Directors hired Sarah Beckman as our third Executive Director. The organization went through significant change in 2022 and 2023. Our Backbone Team went from ten to four team members when our AmeriCorps VISTA grant was not renewed. During this time, we also closed Collaborative Action Teams. Closed teams included the three we were facilitating during Covid and the three we were facilitating pre-Covid. All Backbone Team resources shifted to supporting a multi-factor approach to improve our Early Grade Reading Outcome. We held a Brown County Reading Success Summit in October 2022 and engaged in Human Centered Design work to inform our community-wide strategy development in the Summer of 2023. Read more about this work on our here.

A milestone during this time is that our Collective Impact Partnership engaged in Strategic Planning for the first time in our history. Nearly 300 Partners were involved in this process and it resulted in five strategic priorities to focus our work through 2027. View an overview of priorities here.