Together We Thrive: How Breaking Down Our Silos Unlocks Real Economic Mobility
Guest Blog by Dan Jennings, Emerge Solutions
Dan Jennings has dedicated 28 years to public education and 20 years to state corrections as an educator, technologist, and data analyst. He serves as a current Hagerman town councilor, a national certified trainer for aha! Process and is the executive director of HagermanForward, a non-profit focused on bringing together resources for individuals in poverty. Dan also leads the 100% Chaves County Initiative as the County Connector, striving to ensure every family in Chaves County can access high-quality services across ten critical sectors. The initiative recently launched the Rehab2Rental program, which aims to increase affordable housing availability by rehabilitating substandard properties that will be rented to housing voucher recipients. Dan is committed to fostering trauma-free childhoods, resilient families, and well-resourced communities through innovative, community-focused solutions.
In the effort to end poverty, a subtle but persistent trap often catches even the best organizations: the silo.
Across the country, dedicated practitioners have been deploying proven frameworks from Circles USA, Bridges Out of Poverty, Getting Ahead, 100% Community, Economic Mobility Pathways, or local grassroots initiatives. Yet despite sharing similar missions of long-term economic mobility and community resilience, our efforts too often operate in isolation. Sometimes, we even catch ourselves treating complementary models as competing strategies. At our worst we might even view others as our competition.
When anti-poverty initiatives compete for attention, funding, or buy-in, our community loses. But when we dismantle artificial barriers and align our resources into a cohesive system, our impact multiplies exponentially.
Unifying our efforts doesn't mean giving up what makes our model effective. It means recognizing how they build upon one another. Frameworks like 100% Community address systemic access to vital family resources across key sectors, creating a stable environment where families can thrive. Programs like Circles USA and EMPath build the deep social capital, intentional relationships, and peer networks necessary for families to cross class lines permanently. Frameworks like Bridges Out of Poverty and Getting Ahead provide shared language, structural understanding, and personal growth tools that help both organizations and individuals move from survival to future stories.
When these initiatives function together rather than in competition, we create a seamless continuum of support. Participants, community partners, and local leaders no longer have to navigate fragmented systems.
This belief in collective impact is why Emerge Solutions was founded over a decade ago. Emerge Solutions serves as a national professional learning community and has created a space where leaders, practitioners, and organizations across diverse frameworks gather to share best practices, learn from one another, and break down systemic barriers.
Circles USA has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Emerge. In 2024, CUSA offered a breakout session at Emerge’s Together We Thrive conference, reconnecting Circles with Think Tank, Employer Resource Network USA, and (of course) Emerge… all of whom were instrumental to CUSA’s 2025 National Leadership Conference, where Lynette Fields and I presented a breakout session on how chapters can work productively with other local anti-poverty initiatives. Organizations like Circles USA showcase what happens when community relationships and support come together to foster economic mobility. By aligning our learning networks, we strengthen the grassroots capacity of leaders everywhere.
If you are ready to move past isolated initiatives and build collaborative networks in your community, we invite you to join us at the Together We Thrive conference in Wichita, Kansas, October 11–13, 2026.
This event is designed to bring together practitioners, community leaders, and experts from across the anti-poverty ecosystem to share actionable strategies, evidence-based solutions, and lived experience.
Don't miss these collaborative breakout sessions featuring our team:
Social Capital: The Key to Economic Mobility (Presented by Kamatara, Executive Director of Circles USA): An interactive workshop on using social capital tools and community mapping to foster cross-class relationships that help families leave poverty permanently.
The Psychology of Spending: Why Money Choices Defy Logic (Presented by Kris Alexander, Chief Learning Officer of Circles USA): An exploration of how capitalism, scarcity, and poverty affect us and what we can do to counter these systems while making values-aligned decisions.
The Benefits Cliff: Why Working More Can Mean Falling Behind (Co-presented by Lynette Fields & Kamatara): A deep dive into policy solutions and practical tools to navigate and dismantle the "cliff effect" across housing, healthcare, childcare, and nutrition.
Moving Beyond the Silos (Presented by Dan Jennings): A practical roadmap for integrating diverse community improvement frameworks, leveraging Appreciative Inquiry, and utilizing "sector connectors" to build cohesive local strategies.
Beyond our featured topics, Together We Thrive offers a wide variety of topics tackling many dimensions of community resilience. Attendees can choose sessions like Help That Heals: Addressing Relational Poverty Through Connection and Community with Sadie Williams to explore healing-centered support, or Tactical Communication for First Responders with Police Chief Rob Frazier on de-escalation under pressure. Practitioners will gain experience in sessions such as 12 Key Resources In Action with Children First CEO Kansas, From Data to Action: Building a Poverty Reduction Strategy with Mary Cacioppi, and From Evidence to Action: Leveraging the Economic Mobility Catalog for Local Change with Beth Alberty. From evaluating systemic impacts in Energy & Poverty: The most important conversation people aren't having with Warren Martin to address trauma and mental health in Yours, Mine, and Ours - Understanding Vicarious Trauma with Dr. Melea Belton and The Intersection of Poverty and Mental Health, this conference offers practical tools for every role across the anti-poverty ecosystem.
Transformation happens when we start building bridges instead of building silos. Join us this October to connect with a national network of changemakers dedicated to collective impact. Register now for the Together We Thrive conference at www.emergesolutions.org.
