Short Talk 3A: How to Make “Collective Impact” a Reality: A Perspective from the Front Lines
Session Designer
Mary Jean Ryan, Community Center for Education Results
Session Description
In 2010, Mary Jean Ryan founded the Community Center for Education Results, which is staffing the regional collective impact initiative called The Road Map Project. The Project is aimed at getting dramatic improvement in student achievement – cradle through college/career in South Seattle and South King County. As the work has advanced over the past two years — and as interest in the notion of “collective impact” has grown in the field—Ryan has noticed the many different important roles a grantmaker can play in this type of approach. Hear Ryan’s perspective on the power that funders have in catalyzing collective approaches and why, now more than ever, grantmakers need to be bold and embrace new ways of working.
Speakers
![[photo]](https://8ca84662c5b8f0cff50d-4baaaf97d63fd7b01243e1b1c57f0cc1.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/181/profile_044db523d334b06b6df6582881521707.png "Mary Jean Ryan, Community Center for Education Results")
Mary Jean Ryan, Community Center for Education Results
Title
Director
Speaker Biography
Mary Jean Ryan is the founding director of the Community Center for Education Results, which is staffing a regional collective impact The Road Map Project. The Project is aimed at getting dramatic improvement in student achievement – cradle through college/career in South Seattle and South King County. The regional effort brought together hundreds of individual organizations to establish the goal of doubling the number of students in South Seattle and South King County who are on track to graduate from college or earn a career credential by 2020. The Project is committed to nothing less than closing the achievement gaps for low income students and children of color, and increasing achievement for all students.
Prior to this, Ryan served for eight years as the director of the City of Seattle’s Office of Policy and Management. Prior to that, she was Seattle’s economic development director. Ryan also served in the Clinton Administration as the associate deputy administrator for economic development for the U.S. Small Business Administration. Early in her career she was the director of the Evergreen Community Development Association.
Ryan has a long-standing interest in education and workforce development — seeing both as keys to fighting poverty. She chaired the State Board of Education and she continues to serve on it's board and on the Quality Education Council. She is also a member of the board of the Northwest Area Foundation and the Seattle Jobs Initiative.
She is a graduate of the Leadership Tomorrow Program. In 2009, she was awarded the Wales Foundation Passionate Citizenship Honoree Award and was named by Seattle Magazine to its 2009 "Most Influential People List". Ryan has a bachelor's from Georgetown University and a master's of public administration from the University of Southern California. She is a member of the Georgetown University Athletic Hall of Fame. She has one daughter who attends Pomona College.