Stand for Children Leadership Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit leadership development and training organization. They train ordinary people to be effective citizen leaders capable of solving problems facing children, both locally and statewide, by convincing elected officials and voters to invest in and reform vital children’s programs. Their highly trained staff provide parents and others concerned about children’s issues with tools to achieve long-lasting improvements for children by joining together in a unified, grassroots voice.
Stand for Children Leadership Center exists because children in communities across America have no power to influence their democratic system to meet their fundamental needs. Their mission is to teach everyday people how to join together in an effective grassroots voice in order to win concrete, long-lasting improvements for children, at both state and local levels.
Since 1999, Stand for Children has championed countless policy and budget choices across eleven states that continue to benefit millions of children today.
For the organization’s first 13 years, members in Stand states and chapters worked independently to identify local challenges facing children, to figure out what’s working across the nation, and to advocate for effective solutions.
In 2012, to ensure that they were maximizing their collective impact, they decided to develop a shared viewpoint on how to accomplish their mission and to prioritize strategies that have proven effective in closing the achievement gap.
“WHAT WE STAND FOR” IS THAT SHARED POINT OF VIEW.
To develop “What We Stand For," Stand for Children commissioned fifteen education policy research papers to identify the most promising strategies for ensuring that disadvantaged students graduate high school ready for and with access to college. They convened a task force with representatives from the 10 Stand for Children state offices to review the research, draft a shared perspective, and solicit and incorporate feedback from Stand staff and members. The task force approached the project with independence, rigor, and pragmatism.
The result of their work is “What We Stand For” and the supporting research papers; these tools are now available to Stand staff and members across the country. In the future, they will provide additional useful, evidence-based tools to Stand’s members, leaders, and staff.
Together, they’ll use this information to make an even greater difference for students in the coming years.
