How the Ascend Fellowship Fosters Connection
When the 2022 Class of Ascend Fellows met for the first time, they were mostly strangers. This class was our first cohort focused on Early Childhood, but even in that sector, only three pairs of Fellows had been connected prior to the Fellowship.
But soon after the first Fellows Forum, the connections began to blossom.
Connections take all shapes – from seeking advice on a project to collaborating on a grant proposal to engaging with an organization’s events. This kind of connection happens in every Fellowship – and it’s a key part of what makes the Fellowship so successful.
To better understand how those connections come to life, we zoomed in on the connections made by one Fellow: Tonja Rucker
The X Factor
2022 Ascend Fellow Tonja Rucker explains the power of the Ascend Fellowship to grow and enrich professional networks.
As Told by Tonja Rucker
2022 Ascend Fellow Tonja Rucker is the Director for Early Childhood Success in the Institute for Youth Education and Families at the National League of Cities. Her work focuses on driving the creation and refinement of a strategic early learning agenda and overseeing the execution of innovative and high-impact technical assistance in cities.
We asked her to share how the Ascend Fellowship has helped her grow her personal and professional networks.
I tend to be more of an introvert. So I don't naturally do a lot of outward facing things. I think the spirit of how the Fellowship is designed, kind of pulls it out of you. I will typically do one or two strategic partnerships that are deep, but this in this Fellowship, that number got bigger than I normally do.
A good first touch point was with Nate Chomilo. Chidi was amazing, because she had sent me some resources and she told me that Nate was working on building out his team too. That conversation was more about how do we set ourselves up for success in terms of hiring the right people. We both had different angles of how we were coming at it. And so it was just very helpful for me.
The day before his meeting, I sent him a nice note saying, ‘You're gonna rock it.’ And he checked back on me after his meeting. That was really nice, so then I was like, wow, these connections are really helpful.
Because of the Fellowship, now all of our [League of Cities] meetings are different. Ascend has totally transformed them. Before, we entered a space and we made sure the mayor knows we're coming so that politically, we're covered. But I really hadn't thought about how Ascend pays homage to the culture and history.
We were having a convening with 10 cities in Albuquerque. So Adrián helped me think about like, how do we bring that part into our meeting. So he was helpful and made the introduction to one of their museum directors. We brought that person, he did the opening for us with a historical look at the Rio Grande Valley.
Folks loved it. I mean, they really didn't want us to start the meeting, they wanted to know more about the culture and history and how the population has shifted. That was important.
Tonja (Right) with 2022 Fellow Jessica Sanigaq Ullrich
Tonja (Right) with 2022 Fellow Jessica Sanigaq Ullrich
Even yesterday, I had an amazing idea about three other Fellows. We have a former staff person who now heads up Catholic Health. I was thinking like, so we get Catholic Health – which is more of a systems – but I want that community lens of birth equity and justice. So if I set the table and bring Twylla, Leseliey, and Kimberly together with two of my team members. We have that municipal lens, but they have different lenses to help us think about, like, what are some policy levers and what role government can play and help us shape up this new body of work.
This fellowship grounded me and how much I don't know. And I love the fact that we had so many folks from the community, along with systems level people. My understanding of the community side of how things were just grew. We were very systems focused. But I think as a leader, I'm not making assumptions that I used to maybe make. There's just so much respect for each fellowThis fellowship grounded me and how much I don't know. And I love the fact that we had so many folks from the community, along with systems level people. My understanding of the community side of how things were just grew. We were very systems focused. But I think as a leader, I'm not making assumptions that I used to maybe make. There's just so much respect for each fellow
Tonja (Center) with some of her fellow 2022 Fellow at Aspen VisionXChange 2023.
Tonja (Center) with some of her fellow 2022 Fellow at Aspen VisionXChange 2023.
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