The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing inequities and brought about monumental new challenges for California’s students and educational institutions. In May 2020, College Futures Foundation—a strategic philanthropy committed to increasing equitable postsecondary success and upward mobility so that California’s economy and communities can thrive—virtually convened a group of nine grantee organizations seeking space to make sense of the pandemic’s early impact on postsecondary students and systems. Over the following months, as the pandemic deepened inequities in students’ lives and reinforced the need for responsive policy intervention, the Foundation reconsidered how its state policy-focused grantmaking strategy could serve as a vehicle to support movement-building in higher education in California. At a time when many grantees were forced to operate in crisis mode, College Futures deliberately aimed to foster a sense of care, support, and community, paired with stable and flexible funding. This was the start of a new policy grantmaking strategy that eventually grew to an “ecosystem” of 16 organizations, intentionally designed to advance connections, knowledge, and movement-building across higher education equity. Read more >