Our Focus Areas
In response to the Opportunity Gap, Wage Gap and Support Gap, BBF has identified a set of interventions that work with sectors, institutions and programming to help close the gap. Bridges invests in three strategy areas: Advancing Institutional Equity, Building Student Supports, and Encouraging Cross-Sector Collaboration.
Advancing Institutional Equity
City Colleges of Chicago offers students a rich landscape of community colleges and programs to choose from, and it’s critical that Black, Latine and low-income students are welcomed into environments where they can thrive. When institutions account for equity—when they are intentional about creating conditions that support students from a variety of backgrounds—students feel supported and outcomes improve.
Building Student Supports
Student success depends on their ability to overcome various hurdles—academic, personal, and financial—in their pursuit of degrees and credentials. Academic supports are necessary but not enough—they need to be offered in concert with professional supports and mental health and wellbeing supports so that students are able to persist through school, earn a degree and start a career.
Encouraging Cross-Sector Collaboration
Moving students along educational pathways and into good jobs requires coordination and collaboration between the educational institutions that serve them and employers, community non-profits, and researchers who all have different roles to play to support student success. Bridges supports organizations that bring these different players to the table and promote transparency between education institutions and employers so that students are better able to access good jobs that advance their careers.
