Look what we accomplished together!
In 2020, Greater Texas Foundation launched a new strategic plan, carefully structured to meet the needs of Texas learners. Partners and changemakers across Texas responded by bringing us hundreds of innovative proposals to consider. Working together, we have achieved significant progress towards helping more Texas learners achieve a valuable postsecondary credential.
Five years later, we are pleased to reflect on the important work of our strategic plan. This Impact Report is a moment to pause, measure the results, and celebrate our collective accomplishments.
Of course, there is important work still to be done in our state. We are putting the finishing touches on our next strategic plan, and are excited to introduce it to you in December. Read on….
In the last five years, $58 million in GTF funding went to 117 programs and benefited 1.2 million learners across Texas.
Save the Date: Webinar
You are invited to a preview of Strategic Plan 2025-29, where we will share our new goals and funding areas with grantees, partners, and future collaborators. Please plan to attend our webinar on December 9 at 2:00 pm. Detailed invitations will be arriving in your inbox soon.
Staffing Updates
We are pleased to share two staff changes at the foundation.
Bree Miller joined us as Programs & Strategy Associate. Bree brings a wealth of experience from her time in Dallas, where she focused on program evaluation and data analysis across the education continuum, from K-12 to higher education and workforce development. Bree will support strategic projects and programs such as the grantmaking process and internal and external communications.
As the Texas Success Center celebrates “five years of improving community colleges,” we invite you to check out their website for videos and stories about member schools who are implementing Texas Pathways.
We are also pleased to share that Chris Woodruff has been promoted to Learning & Evaluation Officer, becoming the first employee to hold this new position.
Chris will lead efforts to synthesize key insights from our grantmaking and learning agenda, while overseeing the annual collection, analysis, and reporting of data related to our long-term goals and organizational performance. Chris will work closely with both our grantees and the GTF team to strengthen our learning and evaluation practices.
Congratulations to Bree and Chris on their new roles!
Second Cohort Begins Texas Emergency Aid Roadmap
In the Fall of 2021, Greater Texas Foundation launched the Texas Emergency Aid Roadmap program, a three-year, $1.5 million grant program to help ten community colleges develop efficient, equitable, sustainable emergency aid programs to ensure students receive the support they need to persist through financial crises.
Based on the success of that cohort, we invited 10 more colleges into the program and brought them together in October for a kick-off workshop with Reos Partners. During the workshop, school teams developed student personas that reflect their campus student body.
With these personas in hand, they explored ways to effectively center student needs in the process for seeking and securing emergency aid. This gathering established the foundation for working collaboratively across a community of practice, supported by funding from GTF and technical assistance from Reos Partners.
Learn more: This Case Study reveals lessons learned and progress made at two participating colleges and shares the hallmarks of an effective Emergency Aid program that any school can emulate.
Grantmaking Update
In its history, Greater Texas Foundation has awarded more than $150 million in grants to changemakers in Texas education. Since our last newsletter, we approved grants to the following organizations:
College Possible
Developing a blueprint for growth and organizational capacity
$100,000
Communities in Schools of Central Texas
Bringing the CIS model to a community college environment
$196,190
Student Veterans of America
Understanding how veterans succeed on Texas college campuses
$563,750
Texas A&M University
Advise Texas is expanding its college advising support in the Brazos Valley
$381,996
Texas A&M University San Antonio Foundation
La Familia Program is helping parents support their college-bound students
$236,875
University of Houston
Improving economic opportunities for Gulf Coast students in noncredit education programs
$292,186
