Q: For those who don’t know All Hands Raised, please introduce your organization and share if and how you’ve pivoted or refocused your work with changes in the political and funding changes and pressure.All Hands Raised is a nonprofit organization based in Multnomah County that brings together school districts, community-based organizations, higher education, philanthropy, business, and families to advance educational equity from cradle to career. Our role is to help communities align around shared goals, use data to understand what’s working (and what’s not), and collaborate across systems so that students–especially those most impacted by inequity–have the supports they need to thrive.
In recent years, we’ve been intentional about refocusing our work in response to shifting political climates, funding pressures, and community needs. Rather than trying to do everything, we’ve doubled down on our core strengths: convening diverse partners, grounding decisions in data and lived experience, and building shared accountability for outcomes. This has meant a reconfiguration of our staffing and programmatic focus, supporting partners as they navigate increasingly complex and under-resourced systems, and a forthcoming reinvigoration of our Partnership Council (a roundtable of influential leaders dedicated to collectively changing student outcomes for the better).
Over the past several years, we have witnessed widening opportunity gaps driven by systemic racism, economic instability, and policy decisions that too often overlook the realities of historically marginalized communities. And, despite investment and great intentions on the part of Oregon’s leaders, we are living through an acceleration of these opportunity gaps. At the same time, there is growing pressure to retreat from equity-centered work just when it is most needed.
All Hands Raised’s mission calls us to ensure that our educational systems support a thriving childhood and prosperous adulthood for all students. We use data, and the lived experiences of our community to measure our progress toward positive outcomes across many measures. And that data clearly tells us that some kids and families are set up to thrive while others fall behind in those same circumstances. Equity is not a “nice to have,” its not a temporary movement, or a political slogan. Equity is an essential, ever changing, and necessary status to seek for moral, humanitarian reasons, of course. But for economic, social, and cultural reasons, too. When we design education, workforce, and community supports with those furthest from opportunity at the center, the entire system becomes stronger, more resilient, more prosperous, and more just.
Meaningful systems change isn’t a single program or policy–it’s a sustained shift in how decisions are made, who has power, and how success is measured. To us, it looks like institutions working across silos, sharing responsibility instead of passing blame, and using both data and lived experience to guide action.
It also means changing the underlying conditions that produce inequitable outcomes: how resources are allocated, whose voices are prioritized, and how accountability is structured. For our community, this looks like leaders coming to the table willing to support each other and collaborate instead of retreat to corners and mire themselves in competition. It also looks like removing ego from decision making and truly challenging ourselves to the following: What might I have to change in my organization, my business, my district, through my seat as an elected official to ensure that our children’s realities are continually improving. Real systems change takes time, trust, and courage, and the only durable solution is a real shift in how we collectively own our children’s opportunities to succeed.
You don’t have to do this work alone–and you don’t have to have all the answers. Each of us carries an important piece to this big puzzle we are trying to solve, so lean in to what you know best and what you uniquely contribute to improving outcomes for young people. Our systems change when people show up with curiosity, humility, and a willingness to listen and learn together.
We need professionals and leaders who are ready to partner differently, parents and caregivers whose insights are valued as expertise, and allies who are committed to using their influence to challenge inequitable systems through shifting policy and allocating resources where they are most needed and impactful. Everyone has a role to play, and progress depends on collective action.
In the wake of the violent and often terrifying acts we are witnessing at the hands of federal law enforcement, and amid the steady dismantling of the public institutions that are meant to hold us together, it would be understandable to feel overwhelmed, frightened, or untethered. We are living in a moment where forces far beyond our local control are actively working to erode trust in public systems through defunding, delegitimization, and the quiet abandonment of the social safety nets and public education structures that generations have relied upon. This has direct impacts on communities of color, on our schools, and on our belief that we can make things better through collective work.
The aim of these efforts is not subtle: to divide us, to isolate us, and to convince us that collective care is either impossible or undeserving of investment.
And yet, this is precisely where our work becomes a tonic.
All Hands Raised exists because we reject the notion that our public institutions are destined to fail, or that our communities are powerless in the face of their erosion. Portland and Oregon have long been recognized for our capacity to come together in moments of crisis–not perfectly, not without struggle, but with an insistence on solidarity over surrender. Our work is an antidote to fear-based fragmentation: a commitment to shared responsibility, to collective problem-solving, and to the belief that young people and families deserve systems that are worthy of them.
Through AHR, we have an opportunity to form a true solidarity block–one that can hold the line for students, families, and educators when so much feels under threat. At our strongest, we can do more than resist harm; we can carve out a beacon of possibility and shared prosperity in an otherwise dark and destabilizing time.
This work is not passive, and it is not abstract. It is a deliberate counterweight to forces that profit from fear, division, and institutional collapse. By choosing to invest in collective impact, shared data, and community voice, we are asserting beliefs long held as nonpartisan community values but which now feel unfortunately political: that our public systems matter, that our children matter, and that we will not be governed by despair.
