In early 2023, the Joyce Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, Schreiber Philanthropy, Steans Family Foundation, and Vivo Foundation began to collaborate on the development of an analysis of Chicago’s current education policy and advocacy ecosystems. The funders sought to understand where these ecosystems could be strengthened to ensure that all students were successful, especially those furthest from opportunity.

Working with BCG and Bellwether, they focused on understanding upcoming governance changes, and benchmarked other similar ecosystems. Building on this work, Bridgespan released a report in September 2023 that offered two overarching recommendations: invest in the existing education advocacy ecosystem, with a deep focus on community engagement and, launch a Chicago education advocacy field catalyst.

These funders then joined with Schreiber Philanthropies to hire the Luminary Collective and the Chicago Public Education Fund to establish a Launch Committee and launch the Chicago education field catalyst.

These recommendations were the result of fulsome efforts to engage the local education community and incorporate best practices from other districts. Collectively, Bridgespan, BCG, Bellwether, and The Luminary Collective completed more than 60 interviews with Chicago education actors, benchmarks of education advocacy ecosystems in eight other cities, and two workshops with 11 leaders of Chicago education organizations.

The culmination of this early work is the Chicago Education Alliance. Launching in fall 2025, the new organization has an impressive array of seasoned education advocates serving on its inaugural project Board of Directors and a founding Executive Director who is a passionate education advocate with a wealth of leadership experience in both the nonprofit and public sectors.