Blog
Welcome to the Aspen Institute’s New President-Elect!
The Aspen Institute Board of Trustees named Daniel R. Porterfield, Ph.D., as the organization’s next president and CEO. Dan is president of Franklin & Marshall College. Dan Porterfield is an innovative, strategic thinker. He brings to the position an intellectual depth, a commitment to inclusivity and diversity, and an ability to lead a complex, mission-driven…
Holistic Coaching: Keeping Families at the Center
“The beauty of [family-centered] coaching is that it can be ongoing or a one-time deal depending on the family’s goals and the place that they are in their life.” – Taneka Thomas, Goodwill Industries of Central Michigan’s Heartland. Ascend recently co-hosted a webinar with The Prosperity Agenda on Family-Centered Coaching (FCC), a coaching model that…
Legislative proposals that could help, or hurt, families
The past few months have been a whirlwind of policy proposals and deliberations at the Congressional level. Most recently, the House of Representatives passed sweeping changes to the US tax code, with the Senate slated to debate and hold a vote on their version of the legislation after Thanksgiving. While this proposal carries numerous implications…
Five Ideas from Colorado’s 2Gen Statewide Conference
Golden, Colorado is a quintessential main street community with boutiques that encourage browsing, yummy wood-fired pizza, and the stunning backdrop of the Rockies. It’s probably not the first place you’d think of for a high-powered gathering of the state’s top policy players. Yet, here they were for a packed 36 hours focused on what it…
State 2Gen Leaders Come Together in Minnesota
On September 14, 2017, Ascend joined The Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, State of Minnesota, City of Saint Paul, the Saint Paul Foundation, and Future Services Institute at the Minnesota 2Gen Summit to Reduce Poverty. The summit brought together 150 policymakers and philanthropic, state, and community leaders from across sectors to learn more about the 2Gen…
New Census Bureau Poverty Data
Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau released new data on income and poverty in the United States. The nation’s poverty rate fell to 12.7 percent in 2016 – nearly returning to the 2007 rate – and median household income increased by 3.2 percent from the previous year. While this news is encouraging, we still have a…