FTF Milestones of our Work

2017:

In partnership with City Garden Montessori School, Crossroads College Prep, and U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation, Forward Through Ferguson has brought Racial Equity training to more than 600 people, helping participants analyze, understand, and dismantle systemic racism.

In an act of Radical Collaboration, Forward Through Ferguson is sharing a staff member with the St. Louis Promise Zone, helping advance the work of both organizations as well as Racial Equity.

To support Policy and Systems Change, Forward Through Ferguson teamed with organizations working to eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline. The Keep Kids in Class Regional School Assembly convened school districts and community members to address racial inequities in school discipline practices for pre-K through 3rd grade students.

To model Radical Listening, Forward Through Ferguson holds events like its recent Promise Zone Canvass Day, where we knocked on over 1,000 doors, engaged with hundreds of residents to register voters, connect them with resources, and ask about their top concerns to inform our policy priorities.

To ensure regional prioritization of applying Racial Equity Lens, Forward Through co-hosted two of the largest city of St. Louis mayoral forums and aligned questions with key policy calls to action from the report.

To provide tools to advocates for equity, Forward Through Ferguson captured learnings in print and online resources, such as the Advancing Positive Change Toolkit.

2016:

In just two month’s time, Forward Through Ferguson convened more than 115 people from more than 70 organizations to apply for the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change Competition ($100 million dollars for a winning solution to make the world a better place). To complete one joint application for St. Louis, people engaged in 18 partner and work group meetings across 7 work groups; developed implementation plans, timelines, and budgets for actualizing 8 of the Commission’s signature priority calls to action; and in total, invested more than 500 hours radically collaborating to move the Promise Zone and the region towards Racial Equity. This collaborative application is one of 800 out of the 1,900 received that will move on to scoring by an international panel of judges.
Collaborated with five other organizations across the region to present “Regional School Assembly – Keeping Our Kids in the Classroom,” where representatives from more than 25 school districts across the region discussed their progress and continued efforts to eliminate out-of-school suspensions for pre-kindergarten through third grade students—a topic aligned with several key calls to action in the Ferguson Commission Report.
Launched the information graphic series “Seeing Inequity,” which visualizes data to help people grasp the depth of the problems we face, and be moved to act.
Transitioned leadership of the Forward Through Ferguson board from Commissioners to citizen leadership through an open community process that will continue through 2017. (Read more about that process here.)
With support from the Missouri Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities, launched the #EducationUncompromised policy timeline, engaging St. Louisans’ experiences, stories and ideas about education policy past, present and future.
Met with, partnered with or presented to over 130 regional organizations, corporations, non profits, initiative or conferences on report alignment, implementation of the calls to action, and/or Racial Equity.
Developed 10+ reports analyzing the gaps and the alignment between regional plans, decisions and reports to the calls to action in the Ferguson Commission report—including this one in response to the Municipal Court Division Working Group Report to the Supreme Court of Missouri regarding Municipal Court reform.
Continued to tell the stories of real St. Louisans, their experiences and their work toward positive change.