There is an increasingly urgent gap between the college degree aspirations of students from low-income backgrounds and their degree attainment. Significant social and financial pressures have hit higher education leaders, creating new urgency for proven options to close this degree divide. Here's what we know: More than 30 percent of all enrolled college students come from low-income backgrounds.1 Despite significant investment in on- and off-campus persistence and retention

In the rapidly changing world of fintech, Intuit’s product designers adapt brilliantly. The key? Stop designing products. Start designing experiences that enable relationships. Money management, business finances, taxes—few tasks generate more anxiety, uncertainty and doubt. Jane in New Hampshire wants to know if she’s filing her taxes right. Susan in Los Angeles dreams of scaling her business but struggles with cash flow. George in Chicago is saving for the down payment on

The politics of Indonesian peatlands are fraught: these rich ecosystems lock up vast amounts of carbon dioxide deep below the soil, but agriculture, urbanization, and other disruption above ground leave them prone to fires that pour that CO2 back into the atmosphere. In this complex archipelago, global climate concerns clash with suspicions about international encroachment and, above all, peatlands’ role in local and national economies. Meanwhile, conservation efforts faced a

AI-driven chatbots, machine learning, and other responsive technologies have surfaced as key ways to scale a hyperpersonalized customer experience. Yet, despite the convenience (and human-like demeanor) offered by these tech-fueled tools, customers say they are still hungry for live, human connections. In fact, 47 percent of people say they prefer a person to a bot, and brands that prioritize this are winning. Customers want to be wooed, understood, heard: in short, they want

The business model offered by platform marketplaces sounds simple: Bring buyers and sellers together in a scalable volume neither could achieve on their own. The reality is that these marketplaces are anything but simple. Important questions are surfacing for chief marketing officers and platform designers about what drives user trust and, ultimately, sustained loyalty at each stage of a platform’s growth. Brands that are nailing the user trust quotient see their marketplace

Trust is one of the biggest market differentiators of our time, but nearly 6 in 10 customers believe companies don’t have their best interests in mind, a state made worse by recent data breaches and a surging demand that your brand stand for something. And the moment your customers no longer trust your brand, they’ll kick you to the curb—swiftly and publicly. Sustained trust isn’t earned by posting a digestible data policy or dropping AI into the customer experience. It can

Lessons from C&A's Inspiring World employee engagement campaign Imagine you’re the head of global marketing for a major apparel brand. You’re charged with interrupting the hectic workday of more than 33,000 retail employees and convincing them to participate in an “employee engagement” campaign. A step inside their on-the-job reality reveals a deeper challenge. They are primarily women ages 18-25, and you’ll have exactly 15 minutes to catch their attention amidst breakroom ch

Trust is the biggest market differentiator of our time, and we’ve dedicated an entire issue of The Practice Papers to it. Context Partners has been in the engagement and relationship-building game for a decade, yet never before has trust played such a crucial role in our clients’ success. Simply put, those who earn it will succeed and those who don’t will not. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reports the largest single drop in trust in the survey’s history — with Americans’

When wood learns to suffer, and to dream as people do, it shall henceforth be called Home. Few things define class and identity more than...

In 2013, Trabian Shorters came to Context Partners with a bold idea. Design an unconventional fellowship that changes the narrative of...

Technology platforms are alluring for the social change sector. From knowledge-sharing hubs to interactive forums, tech promises...

Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free. —Leonard Cohen A 73-year old man is visited...

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. ― Mahatma Gandhi In this collection...

The Mile High City has much to boast when it comes to showcasing equitable urban development. In this pictorial published on the EcoDistricts blog, I highlight eight compelling reasons why it was picked as the host for the 2016 EcoDistricts Summit. Read the full article

Since their first Summit in 2011, EcoDistricts has been sure of one thing. They want their events to break the mold — from the venues they select, to the experiential programming they insist upon, to the diversity of faculty at the podium, and the variety of perspectives of attendees. In this article on the EcoDistricts blog, I highlight what's in store for the 2016 Summit in Denver, Colorado, including unusual venues in the heart of the art and culture district, exceptional

For far too long, neighborhood development has been primarily about brick-and-mortar solutions to building and rehabilitating neighborhoods. The world of city building has drastically changed, and it requires a more diverse and more integrated range of solutions to empower social vibrancy and restore ecological health. Success hinges on building robust public-private-civic partnerships to align leadership, improve cross-sector collaboration, and build new models of inclusive

Since their founding in 2013, EcoDistricts has examined, vetted and tested the idea that the neighborhood is not only the heart of our...

Outside my car window, the Sandy Ridge trailhead parking lot is sparsely populated and motionless: SUVs, Subarus and compact sporty cars,...

It's just after five and I'm sitting inside the Wash World laundromat waiting for my four loads to dry. The place is a colorful mix of...