1. Step Up Savannah’s Annual Meeting & Breakfast

2. #creatingopportunity2015 Instagram/Twitter - @stepupsavannah facebook.com/stepup.support

4. Thank you to our sponsors Platinum Sponsors Gold Sponsors Silver Sponsors Bronze Sponsors Hussey Gay Bell, Memorial Health

6. Outstanding Business Champion

7. Teinique Gadson Advocacy Award

8. Outstanding Neighborhood Leader Molly Lieberman

9. Outstanding Neighborhood Leader Rashamod Lee Torrance

10. Step Up Savannah’s Annual Meeting & Breakfast

11. October 2, 2015 David Dodson President, MDC Building an Infrastructure of Opportunity in Savannah

12. The American Dream How many of you believe that where a person starts in life shouldn’t determine where they end up?

13. At the root of the uncertainty lies a pervasive doubt: whether the nation can sustain the American Dream of each generation moving up and doing better than previous generations.

14. Complex Landscape, Common Challenge Lack of Mobility: The South stands out Source: Equality of Opportunity Project data

15. Today we will consider: What are the current patterns of economic mobility in the South and in Savannah, and what levers can provide economic uplift broadly? Who in this region is stuck with limited economic opportunity, and who is on the path to success? How can young people growing up in this region access opportunity and participate in future prosperity?

16. Growth and Low Mobility The paradox of the metro South, 100 Largest Metros Sources: Forbes, Equality of Opportunity Project, Trulia, Brookings, and U.S. Census Bureau Forbes Best for Business Mobility Poverty Rate Increase in Poverty Since 2000 Raleigh, NC19412.0%96.8% Nashville, TN67814.0%66.7% Charlotte, NC79814.0%97.4% Dallas, TX85514.4%64.4% Atlanta, GA99614.5%89.9% Memphis, TN8410019.6%31.8%

17. Stuck in Place Annual growth rate of real income across the family income distribution, national Source: Alan Krueger, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers

18. Upward Mobility “Inequality would not be a problem if upward mobility were strong in America.” --Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor

19. Median Household Income by Race and Ethnicity, 2013 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, Five-Year Averages

20. Economic Mobility in Savannah Where children born in each quintile of the income distribution end up as adults Source: Equality of Opportunity Project

21. Income Mobility, by Education Chances of moving up or down the family income ladder Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

22. Upward Mobility What is your family’s mobility story?

23. The Path to Possibility If individual mobility rests on a combination of personal drive, deliberately supportive institutional practices, community supports, and the eradication of structural barriers, how can we make sure all of those factors are operating in the lives of the young people who start out furthest from opportunity?

24. Based in part on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation model Preparation Obtain secondary skills and motivation for postsecondary success Connection Understand application process and financial aid Entry Enroll, obtain financial aid, pass assessments, and complete orientation Progress Complete courses and accumulate credits Completion Complete course of study and attain credential Employment Obtain a living wage job with opportunities for career advancement Preventing Loss, Creating Momentum A systems view 24

25. For Every 100 9 th Graders Estimated educational completion and persistence, 2010 Source: NCHEMS Information Center estimate using data from Tom Mortenson—Public high school graduation rates and College- going rates of students directly from HS, ACT Institutional Survey— Freshmen to sophomore retention rates, NCES-IPEDS Graduation Rate Survey—Graduation Rates.

26. Affluence and Completion Family economic status influences educational attainment Source: New York Times graphic using Department of Education data

27. Source: Urban Institute and Southern Education Foundation Barriers to Belonging Concentrated poverty and concentrated affluence in schools, 2013 In Chatham County, 53 percent of students from low-income families are in high-poverty schools. Only 13 percent of students not from low-income families are.

28. Barriers to Belonging Race and the concentration of poverty in schools, 2013 Source: Urban Institute and Southern Education Foundation In Chatham County, 55 percent of black students are in high-poverty schools. Only 11 percent of white students are.

29. Barriers to Belonging Overall economic segregation index Source: Martin Prosperity Institute

30. Barriers to Belonging Percentage of the population under the poverty line living in high-poverty neighborhoods Source: The Century Foundation using U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data

31. Clustering and Fragmenting Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort: We’re increasingly living in “balkanised communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible.” Bonding, bridging, and linking capital Amb. James Joseph: Smaller communities of “meaning and memory”

32. Based in part on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation model Preparation Obtain secondary skills and motivation for postsecondary success Connection Understand application process and financial aid Entry Enroll, obtain financial aid, pass assessments, and complete orientation Progress Complete courses and accumulate credits Completion Complete course of study and attain credential Employment Obtain a living wage job with opportunities for career advancement Transportation Career & Academic Counseling Living Wage Employment Policies Work Supports Cultural Messages & Media Representations Preventing Loss, Creating Momentum Community Systems Context Institutional & Public Policies

33. It is the systems and supports needed to boost young people to higher rungs on the ladder of economic and personal advancement. It includes employers, education systems, community-based organizations, policy makers, civic and neighborhood leaders, philanthropy, and young people themselves It engages them all to foster a common strategic vision of aims and outcomes for education and training systems What is the Infrastructure of Opportunity?

34. It takes advantage of local assets and addresses the community’s distinctive challenges It should be as pervasive and reliable as the physical infrastructure of roads and water lines What is the Infrastructure of Opportunity?

35. Challenge High-growth city with talent pipeline that is disconnected from local labor force, leaving local youth on the sidelines of opportunity Response Made in Durham: an employer-led strategy to align local resources, link data systems, and create secondary to postsecondary career pathways with seamless, work-based learning opportunities with the support of private philanthropy, employer capital, and public funding Durham, NC

36. Challenge Addressing stalled mobility and rising suburban poverty so that all young people have the skills to enter and compete in the region’s dynamic economy Response Public and private partnerships at the neighborhood, institutional, and metro-wide level—like Project L.I.F.T. and Charlotte Works—to improve young people’s social and physical connections to the resources and skills necessary for civic participation and economic success Charlotte, NC

37. Challenge Preparing Houston’s young people—particularly disconnected youth—to connect with employment opportunities in a booming economy driven by the energy and knowledge sectors—and doing it on a massive scale, in both geography and number Response Savvy investment of private and federal dollars to innovate in education and employment systems, with major national and local philanthropic investment in secondary and postsecondary reforms; UpSkill Houston is an example Houston, TX

38. “When you in sit in council for the welfare of the people, you counsel for the welfare of that seventh generation to come. They should be foremost in your mind, not even your generation, not even yourself, but those that are unborn. So that when their time comes here they may enjoy the same thing that you are enjoying now.” --Oren Lyons The Seventh Generation Ethos

39. “To be of use,” Marge Piercy The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.

40. To be of use Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real. --Marge Piercy

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