Skip to main content
Speech by President Lorie K. Logan

Opening remarks for Advance Together: Celebrating the achievements of Texas community partnerships

Dallas Fed President Lorie K. Logan delivered these remarks at an Advance Together event held at the Dallas Fed.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Lorie Logan, and I serve as the president and CEO of the Dallas Fed.

I’d like to thank Governor [Michelle] Bowman for kicking off our celebration and sharing her insights on the Federal Reserve’s role in community development. And thank you to everyone here, including external partners and Dallas Fed staff, for joining us today.

In particular, I’d like to recognize our guests of honor, leaders from our four Advance Together communities:

  • The Education Partnership of the Permian Basin.
  • The Big Country Manufacturing Alliance in the rural regions of West Central Texas.
  • The Family Pathways 2-Gen Coalition in Travis County.
  • The Deep East Texas College and Career Alliance.

Community development is one of the key functions of the Federal Reserve. And here at the Dallas Fed, we are working to build a strong economy where everyone has the opportunity to participate and thrive.

The Dallas Fed saw an opportunity to address institutional challenges at the heart of K-12 education and workforce development ecosystems here in the state by convening dedicated professionals from an array of backgrounds including:

  • Public and private education professionals.
  • Social service providers.
  • Representatives from institutions of higher education.
  • Workforce training providers.
  • Employers.

The diverse perspectives offered by our partners are integral to the initiative’s work. Thank you all for your hard work over the last four years, and congratulations on the substantial progress you’ve achieved. Your commitment to building a brighter future for everyone in Texas is inspiring, and it has been an honor for us to be a part of these efforts.

The development of Advance Together

I’d like to share some background on why the Advance Together initiative was developed and how it came to life.

Although Texas continues to stand out as one of the fastest-growing economies in the country, it also has the 10th-highest poverty rate in the nation. Across the state, many lower-income and historically underserved communities face barriers that hinder economic mobility and resilience. We see substantial disparities on indicators such as kindergarten readiness rates, grade-based reading levels, high school graduation rates and post-secondary-degree completion. At the Dallas Fed, we focus a large portfolio of our community development work on educational attainment and workforce development in hopes of closing gaps in these areas. In developing the Advance Together initiative, we decided to keep these areas at the forefront of our focus.

Our place-based community development efforts, like Advance Together, are built from research and conversations with practitioners that show cross-sector collaboration is key to the economic growth of communities. These efforts support local cross-sectoral partnerships working to improve educational and employment opportunities and outcomes for lower-income communities, thus boosting long-term economic resilience and mobility for individuals and families. This work reinforces our mission to build a strong economy for all.

Effective solutions to complex local problems in areas like education or workforce development often rely on champions from across the public, nonprofit and business sectors working together toward shared goals over a sustained period of time. Advance Together is a catalyst for this collaborative effort, coordinated by the Dallas Fed in the communities we partner with. We provide customized guidance, technical assistance, and trainings to our partners through our staff and external consultants. I would like to note that the Dallas Fed does not raise funds, provide funding for grants or participate in the selection of grantees. Rather, fundraising and grant funding is coordinated by our external philanthropic partners to provide grants to participating communities.

The Advance Together steering committee selects grantees and manages program funding. Members of this committee include state- and national-level workforce and education experts from the business, nonprofit, philanthropic and public sectors.

Before we launched Advance Together’s pilot round, the Dallas Fed and the steering committee explored existing cross-sector partnerships in the state that were addressing acute education and workforce development challenges. We identified nearly 90 coalitions during this search. While many of these coalitions articulated ambitious goals and aligned strategies, they [the coalitions] shared with us that their biggest challenges include a lack of infrastructure and dedicated capacity to manage and coordinate this work. This is where a targeted initiative like Advance Together can make a difference.

Advance Together strengthens local and regional partnerships, builds collective capacity for this work, and capitalizes on the expertise and experiences of local leaders to drive change. Through our support and in our role as impartial, neutral conveners and researchers, we have helped close institutional silos and elevate the work of these community partnerships beyond individual-level impact. Our application of technical assistance at the local level provides opportunities for communities to rally around improving long-term economic objectives that are inclusive of lower-income people.

Community impact

We’ve seen meaningful impact from our pilot-round sites and substantial progress toward their shared goals.

A few highlights include:

  • New engagement and leadership from anchor institutions like local hospital networks, school districts, higher education partners and employers, which opens the door for further meaningful collaboration in the future and opportunity for system-level changes.
  • Significant progress in data-driven decision-making, specifically in terms of collecting data, sharing data across partners to inform collaborative work, and developing collective goals in alignment with the information available and a data-driven strategy and approach.
  • Finally, Advance Together pilot-round teams have attracted over $8 million total in follow-on investment, recognizing the successful collaborative work thus far and the value of these coordinated efforts in their respective regions.

I look forward to the Advance Together team leaders sharing more about the site-level progress during their panel discussion later this afternoon.

Conclusion/acknowledgements

The Dallas Fed’s district covers Texas, southern New Mexico and northern Louisiana. Texas was selected as the focus for this pilot round due to its role as the primary driver of our district’s economy and our goal to generate state-level impact with this initiative.

We aspire to have Advance Together’s approach serve as a model for communities across our district and nationwide.

You will hear this afternoon from an array of leaders, including representatives from the four communities in Advance Together’s pilot round, as well as partners who contributed to the design and development of this initiative. I would like to thank these leaders for their service to the community and their dedication to the next generation. I hope their words will encourage many of you to apply for the next round of this initiative.

I’d also like to thank our pilot-round partners including:

  • The experts on our steering committee who made sure we at the Dallas Fed, as well as local leaders spearheading efforts on the ground, were well-coordinated with state and local policy work already in place, allowing Advance Together to build on this progress.
  • Our fiscal sponsor, the Dallas Foundation, and the funding partners who have made the pilot round possible, including:
      • The Doris Duke Foundation.
      • The Kresge Foundation.
      • Texas Mutual.
      • The Meadows Foundation.
      • The Communities Foundation of Texas.
  • Advance Together’s evaluator, Mt. Auburn Associates, and the external consultants and trainers who directly supported our Advance Together communities.

I would also like to recognize Dallas Fed staff members who have contributed to the development and execution of Advance Together:

  • Alfreda Norman, who recently retired from the Dallas Fed.
  • Roberto Coronado.
  • Kseniya Benderskaya.
  • Molly Hubbert Doyle.
  • Jane Santa Cruz.
  • Marycruz De Leon.
  • Curnelius Arnick.
  • Scott Wilkes.

This initiative would not have been possible without strategic support and guidance from our communications, legal and procurement departments.

Finally, I want to thank our Dallas Fed board of directors for their support of this impactful work.

In closing, I’d like to thank you all for being here today in celebration of this tremendous effort and the accomplishments of this team and our community partners.

I’m happy to turn the mic over to Kseniya Benderskaya now, who will share more about our Advance Together pilot-round teams.

Lori K. Logan

Lorie K. Logan is president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System.