The Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions’ Opportunity Youth Fund and Forum announced $2 million in new grants this past month, bringing the total grantmaking for the OYF to more than $50 million. For over a decade the OYF has supported deep impact in over 40 Place-Based Partnerships, strengthening youth-serving systems, and improving outcomes for all young people from cradle to career.

---

Washington, D.C., August 25, 2026 — The Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions (AIFCS) announced four major investments of $500,000 each to community collaboratives in Boston, Houston, Denver, and Los Angeles. Thanks to a deep partnership with the Ballmer Group Philanthropy, these grants support major impact for children, youth, and families – helping school systems, higher education and workforce development achieve better outcomes. The latest round of grantmaking from the Forum for Community Solutions also represents a historic milestone: more than $50 million in community regrants invested through the Opportunity Youth Forum (OYF) to strengthen local systems, accelerate community-driven innovation, and improve outcomes for our most vulnerable young people.

For more than a decade, these investments have reflected the Forum’s commitment to supporting communities as they redesign the systems that shape young people’s lives. Rather than funding isolated programs, the Opportunity Youth Forum has dedicated more than $50 million in impact grantmaking to helping K–12 education, postsecondary education, workforce development, justice, and foster care systems work better together. — creating stronger pathways of opportunity and improving outcomes for all young people from cradle to career.

“The challenges facing young people cannot be solved by any single institution,” said Steve Patrick, Vice President at the Aspen Institute and Executive Director of the Forum for Community Solutions. “They require communities that trust one another, institutions willing to work differently, and young people whose leadership shapes every decision. Reaching this milestone represents far more than dollars invested—it reflects a sustained commitment to helping communities and place-based partnerships build stronger systems that create better outcomes for every young person.”

Since its launch in 2012, the Opportunity Youth Forum has grown into a national network of more than 40 urban, rural, and Tribal place-based partnerships working together to strengthen education and employment pathways while transforming the systems that too often create barriers to opportunity. Through strategic grantmaking, technical assistance, peer learning, data, and national partnerships, OYF supports local leaders in transforming the K–12, postsecondary, workforce development, justice, and foster care systems that too often operate in isolation. By helping these systems align around young people’s lived experiences, communities are better positioned to create lasting pathways to education, employment, wellbeing, and economic mobility, while public-sector resources are more aligned to achieve greater impact.

Investing in Community Impact

The Opportunity Youth Forum’s $50 million-plus in impact grantmaking has supported communities in:

• Building community data capacity to improve decision-making, accountability, and continuous learning across K–12, postsecondary, workforce development, justice, and foster care systems.
• Strengthening collaboration across education, workforce, philanthropy, government, healthcare, community organizations, and young people.
• Supporting healing-centered organizing that recognizes wellbeing as foundational to long-term opportunity.
• Expanding civic engagement pathways and economic mobility.
• Advancing youth leadership so young people are partners in designing the policies and systems that affect their lives.
• Scaling evidence-based approaches that foster belonging, meaning, wellbeing, and purpose.
• Strengthening local ecosystems so youth-serving systems work together to improve outcomes for young people from cradle to career.

These investments reflect the Forum’s long-standing belief that sustainable systems change happens when communities are trusted to lead, young people are recognized as experts in their own experiences, and philanthropy invests in robust place-based partnerships and local capacity, trusting relationships, and long-term impact rather than short-term solutions.

Looking Ahead

As the Forum for Community Solutions enters its next chapter, it is expanding its work to help communities create systems where every young person can thrive.

Building on years of learning, the Forum will continue investing in evidence-based interventions that strengthen belonging, meaning, wellbeing, and purpose as essential conditions for child and youth development and systems transformation. 

“Every community already possesses extraordinary assets,” said Dr. Monique Miles, Vice President at the Aspen Institute and Director of the Opportunity Youth Forum. “Our role is to help unlock those assets, connect leaders across sectors, and invest in the capacity that allows local solutions to flourish. As we look ahead, we remain committed to advancing evidence-based approaches that strengthen belonging, meaning, wellbeing, and purpose while partnering with philanthropy to build a future rooted in healing, opportunity, and shared thriving for all young people.”

About the Opportunity Youth Forum

The Opportunity Youth Forum (OYF), an initiative of the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions, is a national network of more than 40 urban, rural, and Tribal place-based partnerships working to reconnect young people to education, employment, entrepreneurship, and economic opportunity while transforming K–12, postsecondary, workforce development, justice, and foster care systems to create more equitable futures. Through impact grantmaking, technical assistance, peer learning, data, and national partnerships, OYF helps communities build lasting pathways to opportunity, wellbeing, and human flourishing for young people.
Learn more at: www.aspencommunitysolutions.org

Media Contact

Bakhtawer Abbasi, Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions
[email protected]
www.aspencommunitysolutions.org

---