Urban Institute Announces New Partnership to Develop Solutions for Social Mobility in America
WASHINGTON, DC, February 5, 2016 — Today, the Urban Institute announced a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish The US Partnership on Mobility from Poverty, a new collaborative aimed at discovering permanent ladders of mobility for the poor.

The partnership will be made up of 24 leading experts, advocates, and academics from across the country. Over the next two years, the group will identify breakthrough solutions that can be put into action by philanthropy, practitioners, and the public and private sectors. The initiative will also be a resource for the field: all its work will be public, sharing insights and ideas with those poised for action.

The partnership will uncover the country’s most successful programs, collaborate with outside innovative organizations to test promising new models, and identify new approaches to improving social mobility in America. It will be chaired by well-known poverty and social policy scholar David Ellwood, the Scott M. Black Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University, who also served as Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government from 2004 to 2015.

“Working with communities across the country, we will develop an action plan that builds on what works and deploys new ideas,” said Ellwood. “Our approach will be geographically agnostic and politically nonpartisan; our findings will be transparent and available to all. We will consult widely, seeking out diverse voices and expertise as we examine the causes of persistent poverty and stagnant mobility. Rather than producing a single report, this partnership will regularly release its findings and ideas as we do our work. We hope that as a result, we can reset our country’s approach to social mobility.”…

Sarah Rosen Wartell, president of the Urban Institute, noted: “The partnership is about putting the country’s best ideas into practice and learning from diverse voices, experiences, and research. The approach of the partnership will be grounded, pragmatic, and action-oriented.”

The partnership will operate independently of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has committed $3.7 million toward the effort. It also will be independent of any other potential private or public funders. The partnership will be staffed and supported by the Urban Institute, but it will engage other institutions and experts.

“This partnership is being created to serve as a resource for the field that we hope will provide insight, analysis, and expertise around causes of persistent poverty and approaches to improving mobility out of poverty,” said Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “While education is one of the most important interventions for improving mobility in the United States—and the focus of our investments here—it is not the only intervention that is needed to improve opportunity. We look forward to working with the partnership to better understand those factors, in addition to education, that shape long-term outcomes for children, families, and individuals.”…

List of partnership members