Strategy at the Intersection of Policy and Practice
ED2WORK® helps philanthropies, nonprofits, and civic leaders design policy strategies that expand economic opportunity.
Founded by Dr. Steve Taylor, ED2WORK brings together policy expertise, philanthropic strategy, field insight, and thought leadership to help leaders move ideas from strategy to implementation.
Opportunity Systems Are Too Often Disconnected
Across the country, leaders are working to expand opportunity. But too often, education, workforce, philanthropy, policy, and community-based practice operate in separate lanes.
Programs may do good work on their own, yet fail to deliver lasting mobility. Policy reforms may sound promising but miss implementation realities. Philanthropic investments may support strong organizations but lack a broader strategy for change at the field level.
ED2WORK® helps leaders across sectors bridge those gaps.
We work at the intersection of policy and practice to help organizations design strategies that are grounded in real-world experience, aligned with systems change, and focused on helping more people move toward dignity, purpose, and prosperity.
Built for Leaders Working on Complex Opportunity Challenges
ED2WORK® draws on experience across philanthropy, public policy, and nonprofit implementation to help organizations design strategies that connect ideas to action, policy to practice, and people to opportunity. We support philanthropies, nonprofits, civic leaders, and education/workforce organizations seeking stronger pathways to prosperity.
STRATEGY DESIGN
Clarifying where to focus and how to act.
Complex challenges require more than good intentions. They require a clear theory of change, a practical strategy, and alignment between goals, partners, and implementation.
ED2WORK helps leaders clarify where they can make the greatest contribution, how to organize their work around measurable impact, and how to design initiatives that connect vision to execution.
POLICY-TO-PRACTICE ALIGNMENT
Connecting ideas to real-world implementation.
Good policy matters only if it works for the people and organizations it serves.
ED2WORK helps leaders connect policy goals with implementation realities, making reforms more likely to improve outcomes for learners, workers, families, and communities.
FIELD BUILDING & COALITION STRATEGY
Aligning leaders around shared action.
Lasting change rarely happens within a single organization. It requires aligned leaders, shared language, coordinated action, and trust across institutions.
ED2WORK helps philanthropies, nonprofits, and civic leaders build coalitions, shared narratives, partner strategies, and issue campaigns that move promising ideas from isolated efforts to broader field-level change.
Led by Dr. Steve Taylor
Dr. Steve Taylor is an author, speaker, and policy leader advancing opportunity in America. His work sits at the intersection of education, work, public policy, philanthropy, and economic mobility.
As founder of ED2WORK®, Steve helps philanthropies, nonprofits, and civic leaders design strategies that build pathways to prosperity.
His career includes leadership across higher education, workforce development, philanthropy, and public policy, including roles at the American Council on Education, Stand Together Trust, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, and the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity.
A first-generation college graduate and Pell Grant recipient, Steve brings lived experience and policy expertise to expanding opportunity.
TOGETHER WE CLIMB
The APPROACH That GUIDES US
In Together We Climb, Dr. Steve Taylor and Jason Janz offer a community-driven approach to breaking the cycle of poverty and building prosperity.
Their book introduces two practical frameworks:
The Mountain Model: A map of the climb from poverty to prosperity.
The Navigation Approach: A relational strategy built on proximity, possibility, and pathway.
Together, these frameworks offer a map and a method, reflecting a core ED2WORK belief: lasting opportunity requires connecting policy, practice, work, education, community, and human flourishing.
Ready to Build a Strategy That Connects Policy and Practice?
ED2WORK® works with:
philanthropies and foundation leaders
nonprofits and community-based organizations
civic leaders and coalitions
education and workforce organizations
policy organizations
employers and industry partnerships
state and regional leaders
conveners and field-building organizations