Resource: Joyce Foundation’s Great Lakes College and Career Readiness State Advocacy Network
Summative Lessons Learned Report
“It’s always good to learn how other states and organizations tackle their work and address challenging issues. Within the structure of the network, we had sightline into the pivots and adaptations that each group was making over time. We developed a deep understanding… I was invested in their success and journeys.”
-Network Member, June 2026
The Joyce Foundation is a private philanthropy that strategically invests in policy research, development, and advocacy to promote racial equity and economic mobility for young people in the Great Lakes. With investments across five states, Joyce distributes grant funding to a wide variety of organizations dedicated to improving quality of life in the region. In 2024, the Joyce team looked across their portfolio and posed a question: Might the lessons that grantees are learning in their place-based advocacy contexts spark new ideas for out-of-state peers?
To answer this question, Joyce partnered with Education Strategy Group to launch a cross-state advocacy network among ten organizations in the Great Lakes region. Over the course of two years, network members engaged in a collaborative, exploratory experience, aimed at bolstering connectivity, college and career readiness content knowledge, and strategic dexterity individually and collectively.
This report, authored by ESG in September 2026, captures the key lessons that members discovered in community with one another. Headlines include:
- Power is subjective. And slippery.
- Relationship building is the hard-earned, iterative work backing any successful long-term strategy.
- There are moments to lead, and moments to follow.
- You don’t always need a new idea – just a new tactic.
- Make the right choice the easy choice.
