What is a Grow Your Own program & why does it matter now in education?

Greater Houston is home to approximately 360,000 lawful permanent residents who are eligible to naturalize, yet only 10% apply in any given year. In response to this gap, Houston Endowment launched the Greater Houston Citizenship Project.Using a human-centered design approach, the project sought to better understand and address the barriers facing eligible-to-naturalize residents. From 2023 to 2025, working together with residents and community partners, project leaders co-designed and tested a set of programs tailored for specific audiences.This project contributed to broader efforts that saw the Houston field office posting the highest number of citizenship applications.On the next episode of Upstream, we’ll explore the process at the heart of this multi-year initiative—human-centered design—from the perspectives of a grass-roots nonprofit leader, community engagement lead, program evaluator, and local funder. We’ll reflect on the structure and speed of such an approach, its inherent challenges, and the surprising insights made possible by engaging community members and trusted messengers.

In the latest episode of Upstream, data experts gathered to discuss Coffee & Quality, a nonprofit capacity-building initiative from United Way of Greater Houston that helps organizations use data, evaluation, and continuous quality improvement (CQI) to strengthen their programs and impact. The group shared real-world examples of how data can drive decision making and create positive change across organizations.

As Texas works to strengthen its teacher workforce, big questions are emerging about certification, preparation pathways, and what it takes to support teachers already in the classroom. In this episode of Upstream, we’re bringing together research, policy, and on-the-ground experts to explore how HB 2 is shaping this moment and discuss new findings from the Learning Policy Institute.

In the second episode of our webinar series, Upstream, we explored an essential question: How do artists live and work in Houston? This question is the basis of the Greater Houston Artist Survey, a tool created by and for artists and intended to capture the most detailed portrait yet of their working life, challenges, and opportunities for growth.Art leaders and data experts weighed in on the unique approach to creating the survey, hopeful findings, and the impact the results can have citywide. 

Hear experts from Houston Endowment, Tomball ISD, and Steuck & Associates unpack the basics of Grow Your Own Programs in public education. They’ll talk about: How these programs can help paraprofessionals and other staff transition to certified teaching roles, especially after the passage of House Bill 2 Common program threads, challenges, experiences, and benefits of Grow Your Own Programs And more!