Mayor Watson hires Fran Baylor as GenATX’s first executive director

Written By ECPR Texas

Initiative also names leaders of its five priority groups to help Austin’s children grow up healthy, safe and happy

AUSTIN, Texas — Today, Mayor Kirk Watson announced that Fran Baylor will serve as the first executive director of Generation ATX, a privately funded citywide initiative to make Austin the best place in America to be a kid. Baylor will be tasked to bring community partners and funders together to advance GenATX’s “Five Goals in Five Years,” turning its research and roadmap into coordinated action to improve outcomes for children and families.

“Fran has spent her career bringing people and resources together around the things that shape a child’s life: stable housing, quality childcare and a family’s financial security. That experience makes her the right person to lead GenATX,” Kirk Watson, Mayor of Austin, said. “We’ve set our goals for Austin’s kids. Fran will help guide the way forward, working with the chairs of our priority groups to turn those goals into action. She understands how to bring partners together and why getting this right matters.”

Baylor brings more than 15 years of experience building partnerships focused on economic mobility and opportunity for children and families. As senior director at Asset Funders Network, she led a Central Texas network of 13 foundations, financial institutions and public-sector partners, including Texas Mutual Insurance Company, St. David’s Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, gFiber and United Way for Greater Austin. She has helped align philanthropic investments around housing affordability, early childhood education, workforce development and financial security. That work includes bringing funders together to support the Affordable Childcare Now Coalition and a regional housing affordability initiative with HousingWorks Austin.

Previously, Baylor led national partnership strategy as vice president of partnerships and field engagement at Prosperity Now, where she helped bring partner perspectives into its benchmarking of household financial well-being and worked with local communities to use the data to inform their work. As senior manager of United Way of Greater Houston’s THRIVE Collaborative, she brought 18 nonprofit partners together with public and community institutions, developing and managing a $4.5 million grantmaking portfolio to support low-income families. 

She holds a master’s in business and in social work from the University of Houston.

“I went into social work because I wanted children to have what they need to thrive. In my own childhood, teachers, a social worker and people in my community helped make that possible for me,” Baylor, said. “When I saw the research behind GenATX, I saw an opportunity to bring that purpose together with the work I’ve spent my career doing. Austin has so many organizations and people already doing incredible work for children and families. I want to help build on those strengths, listen to families, and work together toward shared outcomes for Austin’s kids.”

The work of GenATX is guided by three core pillars: healthy kids, safe kids and happy kids. GenATX’s five priorities put those pillars into action, addressing children’s earliest years, access to essential support, mental health, places to connect and grow, and pathways from school to careers.

Watson also announced the chairs and co-chairs who will lead the five priority working groups and together with at least two others, serve on GenATX’s steering committee. They will bring partners together around each priority to help advance the five-year roadmap:

Clifford Chiu, an independent civic steward, and Perri Travillion, impact and engagement associate director at Spurs Sports and Entertainment, will serve as at-large steering committee members. The full working group rosters are available here.

With Baylor and the priority working group leaders in place, GenATX will begin putting its five-year roadmap into action. Released in August, the roadmap draws on a benchmark comparing Austin with the 50 largest U.S. cities across 47 indicators of child well-being. United Way for Greater Austin will lead coordination of the five priority working groups, helping these leaders and community partners use the findings to guide their work and measure progress toward the initiative’s five goals.

Community members will have their first opportunity to meet Baylor in her new role Oct. 26 at Austin PBS, where GenATX will host Mayor Watson and author Dr. Angela Duckworth for a fireside chat about how the people and places around children can help them thrive. 

For more information, visit GenATX.com or email info@GenATX.com.

###

About Generation ATX

Generation ATX is a citywide movement led by Mayor Kirk Watson to make Austin the best place in America to be a kid. By bringing together leaders from education, business, health care, philanthropy, government, nonprofits and the community, GenATX is creating a shared roadmap to improve outcomes for children.

Grounded in data and shaped by community input, GenATX identifies the greatest opportunities to help every child thrive from birth through adulthood. The initiative focuses on aligning existing efforts, strengthening cross-sector collaboration and advancing measurable strategies that improve child well-being across Austin.

Rather than creating new systems, GenATX works to connect partners around shared priorities, accelerate solutions that are proven to work and inspire collective action so every child has the opportunity to succeed, regardless of where they live or the circumstances into which they were born.

ECPR Texas