The DCAN Strategy Institute
What Is the Strategy Institute?
The DCAN Conferece Strategy Institute is a collaborative implementation experience where school and organizational teams develop actionable strategies to strengthen college-going culture through the lenses of equity and sustainability, ensuring lasting impact for students.
Taking place on Day 2 of the DCAN Conference, the Strategy Institute moves participants from learning and inspiration to planning and implementation. Teams will build upon the ideas, strategies, and conversations from Day 1 and apply them directly to the needs, challenges, and opportunities within their own schools and organizations.
Through facilitated activities, collaborative planning, and dedicated team work time, participants will develop a practical blueprint they can take back to their organization and begin implementing.
The goal is simple: participants should leave the conference not only knowing what they want to change, but with a clear strategy for how they will make that change happen.
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Team-Based Participation: Participants work alongside colleagues and key stakeholders to create shared ownership of their strategy and its implementation.
Guided Strategic Planning: Facilitated exercises help teams identify a priority challenge or opportunity, examine current practices, establish goals, and determine the strategies needed to move forward.
Implementation Planning: Teams move beyond identifying what they want to accomplish and focus on how the work will happen, including timelines, responsibilities, resources, and next steps.
Action Plan Development: Each team develops a clear, actionable plan that outlines specific strategies, action steps, ownership, timelines, and measures of progress.
Sustainability Planning: Teams consider how their strategy can be maintained beyond a single program, initiative, or school year by identifying the systems, partnerships, resources, and structures necessary for long-term success.
Equity-Centered Decision Making: Throughout the planning process, teams examine how their strategies address barriers, expand access, and create more equitable opportunities for students.
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The Strategy Institute is designed for schools, districts, community-based organizations, higher education partners, and other organizations committed to strengthening college access, college-going culture, and student success.
Participants may include:
School counselors and college advisors
Teachers and student support staff
School and district leaders
College access and success practitioners
Community-based and youth-serving organizations
Higher education partners
Program managers and organizational leaders
Other stakeholders responsible for college-going initiatives
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While individuals may participate, we strongly recommend attending the Strategy Institute with a team of 2–5 people from your school or organization.
The Strategy Institute is designed around collaboration. Bringing together colleagues and key stakeholders with different roles, perspectives, and experiences allows your team to develop ideas, make decisions, and build an implementation plan together.
Consider bringing a team that represents different parts of your work, such as organizational or school leadership, counselors and advisors, program staff, teachers, community partners, or others who will play a role in implementing and sustaining the strategy.
The people responsible for carrying out the plan should have a voice in building it. Planning together creates shared ownership, strengthens buy-in, and helps ensure the strategy can move from an idea to sustainable action.
Recommended Team Size: 2–5 participants
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The Strategy Institute is designed as an interactive working session, not a traditional conference day.
Participants will spend the day learning, planning, and working alongside their organizational teams through a combination of:
Facilitated instruction and strategic planning activities
Team discussions and reflection
Collaborative work sessions
Peer learning and idea sharing
Guided implementation planning
Action and sustainability planning
Opportunities for feedback and refinement
The Institute will follow a progression that moves teams from identifying a challenge or opportunity to designing and preparing to implement their strategy:
Identify → Analyze → Strategize → Plan → Implement → Sustain
By the end of the experience, teams will have developed a tangible blueprint that can guide their work after the conference.
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By the end of the DCAN Strategy Institute, participating teams will be able to:
Identify a priority challenge or opportunity related to college-going culture, college access, or student success within their school or organization.
Analyze the challenge through an equity lens to better understand barriers, disparities, and the students most impacted.
Develop a clear and measurable goal connected to their identified priority.
Design strategies and action steps that respond to their organization's unique context and student needs.
Create an implementation plan that identifies responsibilities, resources, timelines, partnerships, and key milestones.
Establish measures of progress and accountability to determine whether the strategy is producing the intended results.
Develop a sustainability plan that considers how the work can be embedded into organizational practices and maintained over time.
Leave with an actionable blueprint that their team can begin implementing following the conference.
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Conferences can generate powerful ideas, new connections, and renewed energy, but meaningful change requires more than inspiration.
The DCAN Strategy Institute creates dedicated space for teams to determine what those ideas mean for their own students, schools, and organizations.
Instead of returning to work with a collection of notes and resources, participating teams will return with shared priorities, clear next steps, defined responsibilities, and an actionable strategy.
By bringing colleagues and key stakeholders together to plan, the Institute builds shared ownership and accountability from the beginning. Rather than one person returning to their organization and trying to communicate or implement an idea alone, teams have the opportunity to develop the strategy together.
Equity and sustainability are intentionally embedded throughout the process so teams are not simply creating another short-term initiative. They are developing strategies that can strengthen systems, improve college-going culture, and produce lasting impact for students.
The Strategy Institute is where the conference theme becomes practice:
Dream It. Design It. Build It.
Dream what is possible for students.
Design a strategy rooted in equity and sustainability.
Build the plan that turns that vision into action.
