For more than 30 years, nonprofit leaders, philanthropists, government officials, representatives from the business sector and many others have been serving our nation's most vulnerable youth. Over the past 18 months, multiple entities have directed new levels of energy and cross-sector effort toward the needs of the 6.7 million youth ages 16-24 who are not in school and not working – defined by many as opportunity youth – given the powerful opportunity they represent for the economic vitality of our nation. 

Building on this positive momentum, and connecting it to the collective impact framework for solving community issues – developed by John Kania and Mark Kramer of FSG in their 2011 article titled “Collective Impact”¹  – the Opportunity Youth Network was launched in January 2013. The Opportunity Youth Network (OYN) brings together national organizations that are working to address the needs of opportunity youth.  By convening national organizations, the OYN seeks to: 1) share updates and learn from each other with an eye toward collaborating in areas of aligned priorities and goals; 2) identify gaps in knowledge including areas that have historically proven challenging around reconnecting opportunity youth; and, 3) as best as possible, minimize the duplication of efforts across organizations and sectors focused on this population. 

The OYN has identified several national organizations to function as co-conveners of the network including Opportunity Nation, Youth Transition Funders Group, Forum for Youth Investment, Gap Inc., Bank of America, and the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions. Working collectively, these organizations will communicate across OYN to plan and implement a convening agenda that reflects the priorities of the participating organizations and the opportunity youth agenda.

The OYN consists of approximately 30 organizations that are national in scope and represent the multiple sectors engaged in the opportunity youth movement: nonprofits; for-profits and employers; private funders; educators; and government agencies. These organizations and/or entities are currently involved in the reconnection of opportunity youth and have demonstrated a commitment to this population.  Over the next 24-36 months the OYN will continue to identify and reach out to entities whose participation will prove valuable in building out the “ecosystem” of collective impact for opportunity youth.

Long-term evidence of success from the OYN will include: 1) a shared communications plan for building and disseminating evidence of progress and success in education and employment for opportunity youth; 2) common metrics for measuring progress; 3) alignment of public and private investments that support opportunity youth; 4) catalytic programming that fills the gaps in the education and employment trajectories of opportunity youth; and 5) a shared policy agenda that details policy priorities at the state and federal level.  The Opportunity Youth Impact Network will work with the co-conveners and participating organizations to continue to define and achieve what success looks like for the Network and opportunity youth.

For general information or questions about OYN please contact Monique Miles at the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions at the Aspen Institute at monique.miles@aspeninstitute.org.

[1] Collective Impact, John Kania (FSG), Mark Kramer (FSG), Winter 2011.