myFutureNC receives honorable mentions in PIE Network’s Best Collaboration category

myFutureNC’s County Attainment Profiles and NC First in FAFSA Collaborative received honorable mentions for Best Collaboration by the Policy Innovators in Education (PIE) Network.

To help local North Carolina communities develop action plans grounded in data, myFutureNC partnered with Carolina Demography to create and publish myFutureNC County Attainment Profiles that highlight their attainment levels and performance on key myFutureNC metrics. The county profiles are intended to facilitate decision-making on local priorities to increase attainment by highlighting county and regional performance and specific opportunities for improvement.

The NC First in FAFSA Collaborative aims to increase the number of students leveraging student aid through a statewide FAFSA Tracker, First in FAFSA Challenge and expanded connections to reach underrepresented populations. During the pandemic, FAFSA completions have declined, creating an even greater urgency around this key performance indicator. To address this challenge, myFutureNC organized the NC First in FAFSA Collaborative to develop a plan to boost FAFSA completion rates. The Collaborative included public (Carolina Demography at UNC-Chapel Hill), private (myFutureNC, College Advising Corps, Hunt Institute), and governmental (College Foundation of NC, NC State Education Assistance Authority [NCSEAA]), and state and local education and community partners where together we:

• Set a FAFSA completion goal tied to existing initiatives and priorities,
• Created incentives for local completion strategies,
• Used data to target supports and report progress,
• Provided on-the-ground training and support; and,
• Developed the public-facing NC First in FAFSA Tracker to measure FAFSA completion progress.

The Best Collaboration category features coalitions of leaders and organizations who worked together to achieve a significant impact for students and families. This category honors the hard work of coalitions that organized artfully to respond to unique opportunities or challenges in their states and communities, contributed to a policy win, and inspired others to take up similar efforts. Leaders and organizations in this category not only advanced or protected critical policy to impact students—they did it in partnership and across lines of difference.

The PIE Network builds, supports and promotes a network of education advocacy organizations working to improve K-12 education in their states so that every student graduates world-ready.

A record number of nominations were received this year from across the PIE Network, and the 2021 roster of nominees includes nearly 100 organizations that represent robust and strategic work happening across the Network.