Two Generations. 
One Future.
Ascend at the Aspen Institute is a hub for breakthrough ideas and collaborations that move children and their parents toward educational success and economic security. Ascend takes a two-generation approach to our work – focusing on children and their parents together – and we bring a gender and racial equity lens to our analysis.
Aspen ThinkXChange 2019: Advancing Family Prosperity
With family voices at the center, Ascend will bring together leaders from across key issues and sectors at the Aspen ThinkXChange 2019: Advancing Family Prosperity on October 15-18 in Aspen, Colorado, to share bold ideas, generate new strategies, and identify critical partnerships to move families toward opportunity in the decade ahead. The convening will highlight inherent strengths of families…
New Index Highlights Leading Resources for Family Prosperity
How can we reimagine the supports that families need to thrive in rapidly changing times? Animated by this foundational question, Ascend launched the Aspen Family Prosperity Innovation Community (Family Prosperity) in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Family Prosperity is a groundbreaking initiative that brings together leading thinkers from policy, research, private sector, nonprofit, and community organizations…
Real solutions for closing the very real racial wealth gap
The racial wealth gap is well-documented and undisputedly real. The median white family has 41 times more wealth than the median African-American family and 22 times more wealth than the median Latino family. And things are getting worse, not better: The proportion of black families with zero or negative wealth rose by 8.5 percent to…
New Framing Playbook: How to Talk About Two-Generation Approaches to Supporting Families
Have you ever felt that two-generation (2Gen) approaches to building family wellbeing should be a no-brainer, but that key audiences don’t quite “get it”? You’re not alone. To pinpoint the communications challenges that come with 2Gen territory, analysts at the FrameWorks Institute compared what we say to how Americans think, identifying places where there’s…