EdRedesign launches Fellowship for Cradle-to-Career Partnership Leaders

The EdRedesign Lab (EdRedesign) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) has announced the launch of its new Fellowship for Cradle-to-Career Partnership Leaders, a tuition-free, 18-month visiting fellowship for senior leaders working in the cradle-to-career place-based partnership field.  

Children and families in communities across the country experience complex, multi-generational, and substantial disparities in education, health, well-being, income, and intergenerational upward mobility. Solutions to address the long-term impacts of racism, poverty, and disinvestment require residents and organizations from all sectors to come together toward shared goals. 

Place-based partnerships combine forces from multiple sectors and elevate the voices and lived experience of residents to solve complex problems in geographically defined places (neighborhoods, towns, cities, or counties). By aligning opportunities and supports, these partnerships work to meet local needs. They build on individual and community assets to create cradle-to-career pathways that allow more young people to reach their full potential. 

The Fellowship is grounded in real-world applications across a variety of partnership models and was developed by EdRedesign and a working group of national field network leaders — Partners for Rural Impact, Purpose Built Communities, StriveTogether, and William Julius Wilson Institute at Harlem Children’s Zone. 

“We are proud to be launching a unique program aimed at cultivating a robust, national talent pipeline of leaders for the rapidly growing field of cradle-to-career place-based systems. We are enormously grateful to our partners and funders who have supported us in bringing this big idea to life. The EdRedesign Fellowship for Cradle-to-Career Partnership Leaders is the first-of-its-kind program that embodies our commitment to providing the requisite tools and network for community leaders to create impactful, cross-sector pathways to mobility for families and children,” said HGSE Professor Paul Reville, founder and director at EdRedesign.

Thanks to a recent $2.5 million implementation grant from Ballmer Group, additional support from the HGSE Dean’s Impact Fund and The Annie E. Casey Foundation, planning grants from Ballmer Group, Barr Foundation, Carnegie Corp. of New York, and the Schwartz Family Foundation,  and general operating support from The Linda G. Hammett Ory & Andrew Ory Charitable Trust, and the Schwartz Family Foundation, EdRedesign established this new initiative to help the next generation of leaders dedicated to equity and place-based work from across the nation. 

In the coming months, EdRedesign expects to announce the selection of 20 fellows who, over the course of the following 18 months through 2026, will participate in convenings, learning sessions, executive coaching, and a community project — a curriculum designed to accelerate their capability to run effective, equitable, cross-sector partnerships. More specifically, the program will help fellows advance cradle-to-career cross-sector partnerships, make decisions grounded in data, center youth and family voice in their work, and lead without formal authority toward shared goals.