Entrepreneurs
A key innovation of Literacy Works is the deployment, in each participating community, of a team of two or more literacy entrepreneurs - change-agents who work on behalf of the local partners and towards the goals of: a) strengthening and expanding existing literacy efforts across the community; b) identifying and filling gaps in literacy services; and c) bringing new ideas, professional development, and resources into the community to support literacy efforts. In these ways, the literacy entrepreneurs play key roles in substantially increasing the number of people who have the necessary skills for today's demands and who are able to contribute to the civic and economic vibrancy of the community. It is these entrepreneurs who provide needed capacity for literacy programs, schools, community-based organizations, community colleges, and other providers to identify critical needs, design, pilot, and expand new initiatives, help to integrate existing but disparate programs, bring in new resources, forge new partnerships, and otherwise advance the vision and goals of the local partners.
In order to provide this new capacity, the team of professionals has to act entrepreneurially and play many roles - organizer, facilitator, visionary, program developer, fundraiser, grant writer, project manager, public relations agent, staff developer, and others. The entrepreneurs also have to work effectively across different institutional cultures and serve as a bridge among the different sectors in the community, different programmatic silos, and different levels of the institutional hierarchies.
The deployment of these literacy entrepreneurs is determined by the local partners, based on the local circumstances and opportunities and the abilities of the individual entrepreneurs. What has been clear in the implementation of this entrepreneur model, however, is that a team approach, especially when dealing with multi-sector partnerships, is essential. Support for the local partners and the entrepreneur teams is provided by a state intermediary (Commonwealth Corporation) that convenes entrepreneur teams from all the sites for training and provides extensive site-specific technical assistance. Commonwealth Corporation and MassINC will work jointly in evaluation, building public support, and ensuring dissemination of major lessons learned across communities.
Roles of literacy entrepreneurs include:
- Conduct (or work with existing efforts in) community needs-assessment / literacy program 'audit'
- Develop and / or implement the community vision and goals
- Build support among key leaders
- Build community awareness
- Convene and support partners from all sectors of the community
- Serve as liaison and bridge between literacy programs, community agencies, and other stakeholders
- Launch strategies on behalf of the local partnership and stakeholders
- Identify and support best-practices that are already happening in the community
- Help connect the many good initiatives that are in place, but operating in silos
- Identify gaps; identify strategies to fill gaps
- Design, pilot, grow, and then institutionalize new programs and services to fill existing gaps
- Communicate successes
- Provide professional development, TA, and support for literacy providers
- Serve as liaisons among programs
- Work as a team across the 'silos'
- Generate resources and build community capacity
- Evaluate, continuously improve, and work to achieve demonstrable results
- Work with LW's Advisory Board to provide orientation to the local projects
