Overview:
On March 26, leaders from across Metro Atlanta gathered to explore how our region can improve outcomes for Atlanta's youth. This panel focused on the need to improve connectivity and social capital as one lever to impact economic mobility.
By Ché Watkins, Executive Director, Braven Atlanta
Atlanta ranks 50th out of 50 major metro areas for upward economic mobility.
Mike Carnathan of Neighborhood Nexus put that number on the table early — and it didn’t leave the room. It shouldn’t. That stat, drawn from Harvard’s Opportunity Insights research, is the clearest indictment of the gap between Atlanta’s ambition and Atlanta’s reality. It’s also the reason a room full of practitioners, funders, and civic leaders showed up to the Atlanta Way 2.0 Forging Pathways: Cradle to Career panel in the first place.
I’ve been doing this work in Atlanta for years. I went to school here. I chose to build here. And I still feel the weight of that number every time I sit across from a Braven Fellow at Spelman College who is talented, driven, and one missed connection away from a very different outcome.
That’s what the panel kept circling back to — not the problem, but the mechanism. What actually moves the needle?
The answer, for me, is social capital. Not a business card. Not a LinkedIn request. A deep, reciprocal relationship — one where people on both sides have what they need to succeed. Kamau Bobb framed the cradle-to-career continuum in a way that made the connective tissue visible: these aren’t separate systems failing separately. They’re a single pipeline with specific, fixable gaps.
What I heard from Taylor Ramsey at OneGoal Georgia, Jaque Joyce at CareerRise, Mindy Binderman at GEEARS, and Cheryl Watkins-Harris at Achieve Atlanta – an organization whose scholars we serve together through BravenX – was a shared conviction: the tools exist. The organizations are here. What’s required now is the will to make the work intentional, ongoing, and measurable — not a one-time intervention, but a sustained commitment with accountability built in.
At Braven, that’s how we approach it. We teach Fellows how to network, create structured exposure to employer partners who volunteer as coaches and mentors, and help students cultivate the relationships they’ll need long after the program ends. Social capital doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design.
Ann Cramer has co-hosted conversations like this one for decades. What struck me — what always strikes me — is that her belief in this city has never curdled into cynicism. That kind of sustained optimism is its own form of social capital. It keeps the room together long enough to do something real.
Can Atlanta change its trajectory? Yes – but only if the work is intentional, ongoing, and measurable and if the people in that room carry the conversation into every room they enter next.
Go to Braven.org and volunteer to mentor one of our students. That’s how it compounds.
Read SaportaReport’s recap of the event here: Atlanta leaders: Social capital is key to improving economic mobility
Atlanta Way 2.0 works to strengthen Atlanta’s civic fabric by convening diverse stakeholders, facilitating inclusive dialogue, and helping translate shared vision into actionable solutions.
Our Economic Mobility Series reflects this mission by bringing together public, private, nonprofit, and community voices around some of the region’s most complex—and promising—opportunities. One such opportunity is to improve connectivity across sectors and create a community dialogue to find barriers and solutions.
We hope you will join the Atlanta Way 2.0 Activator Network to stay informed, share resources, and keep up the momentum!
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