In 2017, Lumina Foundation, in partnership with the Kresge Foundation, shifted one of its grant programs to a designation model, as a fundamental component of its long-term goal to increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates, and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. This designation indicates a community has shown the capacity to significantly increase the number of residents with college degrees, certificates, or other credentials beyond a high school diploma. Through this designation model, known as Talent Hubs, Lumina recognizes 24 “bright spot” communities (17 designated in 2017 and seven designated in 2018) that employ systems-change strategies to increase post-secondary attainment. These sites receive modest financial support, a network of peer communities throughout the nation, and technical assistance on partnership health, equity, and attainment strategies.

Lumina Foundation evolved the Talent Hub designation model from its Community Partnerships for Attainment (CPA) work (all current Talent Hubs were CPA grantees), as well as from other Lumina bodies of work such as Latino Student Success. During the period of CPA (2013-2017), Lumina’s leadership and staff identified several practices that could augment their dollars:

• Promote sustainability, by ensuring the work will continue after the grant terms have concluded
• Engage directly with grantees, without an intermediary, to experience growth and challenges as they occur on the ground
• Collaborate with grantees as thought partners
• Honor the unique ecosystems of each community, and the strategies and tactics they pursue for maximum impact

In shaping Talent Hubs, and structuring it as a designation model, Lumina acknowledged the centrality of these practices in supporting communities to reach their attainment goals. The Foundation believed that the power of a designation could catalyze fundamental shifts in its relationships with communities and the impact of the work on post-secondary attainment regionally.

“The designation was organic yet closely aligned with our earliest thinking.” 

Haley Glover, Strategy Director

Reflections from Lumina Foundation and Talent Hubs Sites

As evaluation and learning partners to Lumina Foundation in this initiative, Equal Measure and DVP-Praxis conducted interviews in spring 2018 with lead partners of the first cohort of 17 Talent Hubs, and with Lumina Foundation’s Haley Glover, Dakota Pawlicki, and Jasmine Haywood.

We wanted to understand more about why Lumina pursued the shift from a grant structure to a designation model, how the designation model fits with the Foundation’s broader program portfolios and culture, and what the designation means to partners and communities that earned the Talent Hub moniker in this first year.

“There is tremendous reciprocity in Talent Hubs and the strategic work happening in other [Lumina] Program Officers’ work.” Dakota Pawlicki, Strategy Officer

Strategy Officer Dakota Pawlicki considers Talent Hubs as “living laboratories,” with implications for Lumina’s other investments. Officers working on advocacy or financial aid at Lumina can learn from each Hub and their close-to-the-ground experiences with community organizations, higher education institutions, and students. In addition, through its mix of 24 Talent Hub designees, Lumina seeks to understand and honor the history, context, population, assets, resources, and players unique to each community—acknowledging that strategies that succeed in Columbus, IN can differ from those in New York City.

Talent Hubs site leads were eager to talk candidly and thoughtfully about the designation. The conversations felt like moments of reflection, and the site leads appreciated the opportunity to discuss the shift from CPA grantee to Talent Hubs designee.

“The most important thing is that Lumina Foundation’s support [of] this work adds a sense of urgency …… the designation helps validate the excellence of [our] work.”

Talent Hub Site Lead

We heard five themes emerge during the conversations:

• The prestige of the designation: Leaders and partners in the Talent Hub work—as well as leaders in the community—consider the designation impressive. They believe it validates their efforts, and recognizes their progress, capacity, and value. “It’s a seal of approval,” notes one Talent Hub leader.

• The commitment of partners: The designation energized partners and intensified their commitment to the work—reinforcing the importance of multiple sectors collaborating with higher education institutions in a sustained way. The designation also attracted new partners, including employers and political leaders, such as mayors. “Now people recognize the importance of what we’re doing—and our political leaders are fully informed and aware of what is happening in our community,” reports one Talent Hub leader.

• Potential for sustainability: In many communities, the designation opened opportunities to accelerate earlier work and progress to the next chapter. The site leads experience the shift to becoming a designee as moving them closer to sustained cultural change—leveraging the Talent Hub designation with other grants, resources, community leaders, and support from government officials. The designation has strengthened their focus on infrastructure and institutional policy and practice changes. Many communities are integrating the designation with academic pipelines and economic development priorities to reach their attainment goals. As one site lead notes, “We can emphasize that this is a project [moving] to the regional level and will last long past the three years of funding.”

• Funder relationship: Site leads feel a heightened sense of expectations from Lumina Foundation and other stakeholders in their communities. The designation brings a national spotlight to the Talent Hub regions. There is a sense of permanence to the strategies they pursue, along with a need to increase collective action. The site leads also believe Lumina wants to learn alongside the communities, to understand how the strategies they pursue are leading to system change. “The expectation is helpful, in a reflective way,” says one site lead on the shift from being a CPA grantee to a Talent Hub designee.

• Murkiness across stakeholders: For some partners, who are not as intimately involved, the meaning of the designation is not as clear. Some do not yet distinguish the meaning of the designation from a grant (there is modest financial support from Lumina afforded by the designation). For stakeholders just beginning to engage in the work, site leads find it challenging to introduce the “Talent Hubs” term and the designation; they have worked hard to bring recognition to the local name and brand of their initiative over many years. Moreover, local media outlets have struggled to write about these initiatives with the added complexity of describing an unfamiliar philanthropic strategy of designations. Additionally, partners who are more accustomed to grantmaking nomenclature consider Lumina’s support as a grant and are primarily interested in the expected resources behind the designation. “From my higher ed partners, [the designation] will matter when the money flows to them,” states one site lead.

How Ready is the Social Sector for Designations?

Lumina Foundation’s Talent Hubs team shared advice for other philanthropies that may consider designating organizations, communities, and initiatives to advance the field. Conversations with staff at Lumina and in Talent Hubs provided enthusiastic, though cautious, advice for grantmakers contemplating a designation strategy: