Strategy

Trellis Foundation believes every student deserves an equal opportunity to earn a credential or degree beyond high school. We work to ensure support and resources for success are accessible. We accomplish this by supporting the innovation and growth of ideas and strategies that increase the ability for low-income students and students of color to attain, afford, and complete postsecondary education. Key to our mission is the importance of centering racial justice in our work.

Discretionary funds: We allocate a small percentage of funding each year for responding to unanticipated needs and emerging innovations.

The Foundation aligns and coordinates its work using multiple approaches to realize change.

Supporting Localized, Direct Impact: Support efforts that directly serve students and are tailored to local contexts, both through funding programs and building capacity, particularly for organizations with historic underinvestment.

Scaling Proven & Promising Practices: Drive the expansion of programs and practices that have successfully narrowed educational disparities, so they can support students at a larger scale or in new geographies.

Driving Structural & Policy Change: Inform and fund efforts that address systemic barriers to postsecondary success for student populations of focus, in order to enable broader change across Texas, including policy change.

Convening & Catalyzing Collaboration: Unify cross-sector actors toward shared goals and actions that are in line with the Foundation’s priorities by leading, funding, or participating in relevant convenings and collaborative efforts. Catalyze shared learnings among key partners working on common or complementary strategies to improve supports for students and narrow postsecondary disparities.

Our team has prepared the following webinar to share additional details on these new strategies.