From Access to Momentum: Building Pathways Where People Can Thrive
By Erin Offord, CEO and President, Big Thought
At Big Thought, we believe access should lead to momentum.
That belief was at the heart of a conversation we co-hosted with the SHRM Foundation at Café Momentum in Dallas. I was grateful to sit alongside leaders from education, workforce, nonprofit, and business sectors as we explored what it truly takes for people not just to access work, but to thrive within it.
One thing stayed with me: placement is only the beginning.
Opening the door matters. But long-term success requires something more durable, wraparound support that sees the full person, belonging and trust within workplaces and learning environments, coaching that helps people navigate what nobody taught them, and systems designed around real lives, not narrow assumptions.
The room named something I’ve seen proven in our own data: the bottleneck was never ambition. It was never talent. It was access and the infrastructure to sustain it.
At Big Thought, we’ve spent nearly 40 years watching what happens when young people get consistent, connected support over time. Seven years of longitudinal research from SMU tells us that young people who stay engaged in a learning ecosystem, year over year, across programs and experiences are significantly more likely to pass state assessments, graduate, and see a future for themselves. Not because they’re different. Because they had something that compounded.
Here’s what I keep coming back to: we don’t have a talent problem in this city. We have a connection problem. The skills are there. The drive is there. What’s missing is the infrastructure that makes sure what a young person builds in one place is recognized and built upon everywhere else. That’s not a program gap. That’s a system gap.
At Big Though we create with young people, not for them. Every pathway we build starts with a young person, not a theory about what they need. And the proof that it works is in what they build when the infrastructure is there to support them.
The work ahead is integration. Employers, educators, nonprofits, and community organizations are each building pieces of the solution. Big Thought’s work in DFW and beyond is building the connective tissue that makes those pieces function as a system.
That is how access becomes opportunity. That is how opportunity becomes momentum.
Read the full SHRM Foundation Tharseo Exchange report here.
