In a recent column in the NYT, David Brooks describes an approach gaining traction among communities seeking a different way to tackle their challenges. The approach is full of promise. And, as often happens, there’s a Baltimore story untold.

Brooks describes an initiative in Spartanburg S.C. that obsessively focuses on their children, measuring everything that matters in their development, and engaging each leader in their community that might touch their lives. When children are failing in school, they ask why and focus on what community resources can be marshalled to catch those kids. So why did Brooks write this column? Because what’s going on in Spartanburg differs from most communities; they see the lives of their children as “longitudinal.” He explains. “Sometimes social policies are distorted by the tyranny of randomized controlled experiments. Everybody is looking for the one magic intervention that will have a measurable effect.” Such behaviors lead us to focus on quick fixes and siloed efforts. Brooks notes that life doesn’t work that way. When things go right it’s because of a myriad of influences over time; the same when things go wrong. The effort in Spartanburg, called SAM, addresses the whole child, recognizing that a lot has to be going right outside of school to enable learning within.

SAM uses an approach called “collective impact”, putting data in the center and pulling in everyone who has a role with children. “It is local, participatory and comprehensive.” What Brooks describes is a very different approach to meeting the needs of kids. It recognizes that no community is short of programs, but most are bereft of a system that makes everything work holistically. “A methodology was born: organize around the data, focus on the assets of the community, not the deficits; realize there is no one silver-bullet solution; create a ‘backbone organization’ (like SAM) that can bring all the players together; coordinate decision-making and action; share accountability,” explains Brooks.

So where does Baltimore fit in to Brooks’ column? The methodology used by SAM and 70 other communities has been developed by StriveTogether. StriveTogether’s partner locallyis Baltimore’s Promise. Baltimore’s Promise has as its vision, a culture of shared accountability for our kids and a need to collaborate with those with resources that matter, all driven by data. I tuned into to Baltimore’s Promise when they collaborated with BridgeEdU, which focuses on ensuring students of promise succeed in college, to provide Baltimore youth with instruction and skills for careers in demand in our community this past summer. The graduation video the interns in Grads2Careers shared with Wes Moore, the Founder of BridgeEdU, is powerful. There’s focus, attitude and commitment to their lives and the careers required to realize them. Save one.

Dimetric Jones, one of the graduates of Grads2Careers, was murdered on the streets of Baltimore less than a month after graduating and days before his construction internship was to start. His life is lamented in an Op Ed written by the CEO of Baltimore’s Promise. If you want to know what makes organizations like Baltimore’s Promise tick, listen to the voice of Julia Baez. “We are still fighting at the state level to provide our students the resources they deserve, including health and mental health resources, as if we need to justify the effects of concentrated poverty and structural racism. We are fighting to make changes to a broken system, when the whole system needs to be reimagined.”

As David Brooks explains, there is a different way for communities to reimagine their children’s futures; it’s an approach that also helps us restore “our social fabric”. Baltimore’s Promise and its partners are in the trenches trying to afford promising futures to our own kids while not losing more Dimetrics. Of his death, Baez asks, “Are you angry? If not, ask yourself this: What if Dimetric were white? Now ask yourself why that makes a difference. Sit with the answer, then open your mind and your heart and demand better.” We should all be such sore losers of our kids.

With more than 30 years’ experience in law and business, Newt Fowler, a partner in Womble Bond Dickinson’s business practice, advises many investors, entrepreneurs and technology companies, guiding them through all aspects of business planning, financing transactions, technology commercialization and M&A. He’s the past board chair of TEDCO and serves on the Board of the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore. Newt can be reached at newt.fowler@wbd-us.com.