Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL) is a Dallas-based nonprofit working to reduce child poverty at scale. When CPAL sought to expand nationally outside of Dallas and modernize its data and decision-support capabilities, they needed an agile partner who could help them build a repeatable, high-quality operating model.
The Challenge: A High-Stakes Mission
“The most consequential issues in local government are wildly undercapitalized from a data perspective.” –Alan Cohen, CEO
In the US, more than 10 million children live in poverty (approximately 13% of all children). For more than a decade, CEO Alan Cohen has seen the same problem repeat across local government and large public agencies:
- Rich data exists, but the systems to turn it into operational intelligence are fragmented or missing.
- Analysts are overburdened, siloed, or locked behind political barriers.
- Insights are trapped in reports rather than used to guide live decisions.
- The pace of social challenges (housing, maternal health, mobility) far outstrips the pace of traditional analytics cycles.
CPAL was built to solve that gap – using data to help community partners and local government agencies address pressing social issues. But as demand for their work exploded, CPAL needed help standing up centralized data capabilities that could serve multiple markets, moving from a Dallas-only portfolio to a multi-city, multi-agency model.
The Solution: A Partnership Built for Scale
“You weren’t only answering the question we asked — you were asking the next question.” –Alan Cohen
Stratus became CPAL’s analytics engine for a critical transition year: the move from local proof points to a national R&D model for economic mobility.
Through regular collaborative working sessions with CPAL leaders, Stratus supported CPAL in developing:
- Foundational donor-facing analysis for national expansion.
- New approaches to local data sourcing, reducing manual effort.
- Highly precise, operator- and policy maker-focused visualizations and statistical analyses.
- Clear patterns for how to frame, answer, and iterate on questions critical to CPAL’s mission.
Together, Stratus and CPAL began turning scattered public-sector data into a repeatable decision-support engine that CPAL can now carry into cities across the country.
The Impact: Sharper Decisions, Stronger Strategy
“It was simple, obvious—and invisible until it was spelled out. That’s the power of good analysis.” –Alan Cohen
Stratus’ work delivered measurable, systemic impact across CPAL’s ecosystem. One early analysis – now used across multiple public agencies – reshaped how Dallas allocates millions in maternal and adolescent health funding. CPAL had long targeted neighborhoods with high rates of teen pregnancy, but Stratus revealed that counts (the actual number of people experiencing teen pregnancy), not rates (the percentage of a population experiencing teen pregnancy) are the more accurate predictor of where teen births will occur. Rates are the industry standard for reporting, but they miss the core issue: how do you maximize per-dollar leverage in reducing child poverty?
Through Stratus’s analysis, CPAL discovered that the highest rate areas were not always where the highest number of teen births were occurring.
This deceptively simple but operationally transformative insight now guides decisions about where to place full-service maternal health clinics, when to deploy mobile units, and how to prioritize family-planning resources across the city’s $10 billion public infrastructure.
Beyond the analytic breakthroughs, Stratus accelerated CPAL’s insight development cycle: investor-facing materials were turned around faster, teams began asking sharper questions earlier, and decision paths across agencies became more precise and evidence-driven.
In less than a year, CPAL expanded from a single workstream to multiple, increased its investment in Stratus threefold, and incorporated Stratus-led analyses into briefings for agency leaders overseeing tens of billions in annual public spending.
Why It Worked: The Stratus Method
“We’ve had really great partnerships with some of the largest consulting firms in the world. But we needed someone who could help us enhance our capabilities, not come in with their capabilities.” –Alan Cohen
Stratus brought technical depth, an agile process, and a human-centered relationship to our work with CPAL, in a way that can’t be replicated by larger firms.
Stratus’ method is unique because we use a co-creation approach centered on real operator needs. We delivered fast, thoughtful analytical work for CPAL and developed a trusted relationship where we could step in to propose the “next cut,” not wait for instructions. Our genuine care and commitment to doing life-changing work is demonstrated by our success with CPAL.
“We’ve tripled our investment with Stratus in short order because the work has been that helpful.” –Alan Cohen
What’s Next: Scaling a National Approach to Economic Mobility
With philanthropic support secured, Stratus is now supporting a full build-out of CPAL’s national data strategy. Together, they’re laying the foundation for multi-market analytic architecture and repeatable, operator-centered insight cycles.
CPAL’s mission is bold: reduce child poverty by redesigning local systems across America. And Stratus is proud to help build the data capabilities making that possible.