What is our Work?

Making Connections-Denver is a 10 year initiative working to improve the lives of families in four low income areas in the city. Below are details of our priorities and accomplishments.

  • Core Results Areas
  • How We Measure Results
  • Recent Accomplishments
  • Methods for Achieving Results

Core Results Areas

MC-D works to achieve results in three priority areas:

  • Family Economic Success – helping families build assets and secure jobs paying family-sustaining wages.
  • School Readiness & Beyond – working with parents, children, schools and childcare providers to make sure children are prepared to succeed in school.
  • Residents Engaged and Connected – Community organizing and other tools to help residents build support networks and work collaboratively to solve community problems.

How We Measure Results

Making Connections measures progress on six core outcomes that reflect the well being of our residents. Within each outcome are specific indicators that are tracked and reported at the local and national levels of Making Connections. The core outcomes are:

  1. Families have stable employment and sufficient income to meet basic needs.
  2. Residents have increased levels of financial well being.
  3. Children are healthy and prepared to succeed in school (and schools are ready to receive them.)
  4. Residents are engaged in their communities to achieve desired results.
  5. Families have strong social networks for support and connection.
  6. Institutions and organizations transform to better serve resident needs.

Recent Accomplishments

During 2007, MC-D deepened the impact of its strategies and seized new opportunities for economic development. Our relationship with Denver’s Division of Workforce Development is quite strong, allowing for a special focus on helping more vulnerable populations gain employment. These include: 1) Persons who were formerly incarcerated, 2) English language learners and 3) People without high school diplomas. Below are highlights from 2007:

Economic success. MC-D and its partners are working with Emily Griffith Opportunity School to develop pre-apprenticeship programs. The city is planning to redevelop Westside neighborhoods, including La Alma/Lincoln Park and Sun Valley. MC-D and its partners have worked closely with city planners and others to enable residents, particularly those who live in public housing, to help chart the course of redevelopment.

Education funding. MC-D partner Metro Organizations for People (MOP) is working with Denver Public Schools (DPS) to get specific “weights” in the district budget to provide additional support for at-risk students, including English language learners. This follows MOP’s budget analysis in 2006 that convinced the DPS Board of Education to adopt weighted student formulas to address funding inequities. Weighted funding will benefit students in all MC-D neighborhoods and infuse new resources into kindergarten and the early grades where gaining competency is urgently needed.

School readiness. MC-D officially launched its group of family, friend and neighbor (FFN) caregivers, who received training in child development and assistance with licensing. The culturally appropriate training and resources can help these caregivers earn a better wage and develop a peer network of support while better preparing the children for school.

Public Housing Residents. When the Denver Housing Authority (DHA) began interviewing candidates for executive director, MC-D and MOP worked with the authority’s Board of Directors to give residents an unprecedented voice in the hiring process. Public housing residents developed questions for the candidates and evaluated their responses in a public forum. This feedback was given to the DHA board in advance of their decision. MC-D partner Project WISE, which provides leadership training and support to public housing residents, has played an even more influential role in advocating for DHA residents’ access to education and employment opportunities.

Access to healthcare. MOP has organized residents and churches to improve access to healthcare for children. In addition to advocating for legislative and policy changes, MOP is working with parents in Early Excellence schools in the Cole neighborhood to get their children enrolled in health insurance programs.

Social networking practices. MC-D has been working with public and private agencies to incorporate social networking practices. Social networking, encourages participants in programs to form relationships and encourage each other. Social networks instill a sense of belonging and lead participants to complete classes and programs at a higher rate. MC-D is also supporting an evaluation of social networking through documenting “practice-based evidence” in organizational innovations.

The Community Learning Network is the evaluation and learning arm of MC-D. Their role is to coordinate research on community problems and shape and conduct evaluations designed to increase the effectiveness of local strategies. In 2007, the CLN and MC-D stepped up the pace and rigor on three projects:

  1. The CLN developed questions and conducted many interviews for the 100 family survey of those involved in MC-D partner activities.
  2. MC-D’s performance tracking system now monitors the progress of more than 400 Early Excellence families. The tracking will be expanded to more agency partners to carefully measure the impact of our improvement strategies.
  3. The CLN is also coordinating analysis of surveys asked in all 10 Making Connections cities to document Denver’s progress since 2002 in meeting core results.

How We Achieve Results

Making Connections is committed to closing the achievement and opportunity gaps that hold back residents of low income neighborhoods. We differ from other social change programs by organizing the community to shape their neighborhoods. Residents learn leadership skills, develop relationships and strategies, then engage others to take action, creating lasting and positive change. We focus on these approaches:

  1. Delivering technical assistance that empowers residents to take grassroots action to help meet neighborhood needs and address community issues.
  2. Building on and using local expertise wherever possible. 
  3. Establishing partnerships with other local organizations to gather and analyze data to know more about the assets and challenges in each community.
  4. Gathering data through surveys conducted locally and by Annie E. Casey to track how residents in Making Connections-Denver neighborhoods are faring in improving their economic success, school success for their children and change in the government systems that affect their lives.
  5. Encouraging and emphasizing communication and learning between sites as well as between organizational partners.