Central to the work of the Opportunity Youth Forum is the belief that advancing equitable outcomes for Opportunity Youth requires more than good intentions; it requires data-informed learning, strong community partnerships, and investment in proven strategies.

The Accelerating Impact portfolio brings together three initiatives that strengthen our network’s ability to track progress, scale promising solutions, and improve outcomes across place-based OY collaboratives nationwide. These efforts contribute to OYF’s 10-year goal of achieving a 50% reduction in the disconnection rate for young people in OYF communities.  

The Scaling Youth Outcomes Cohort (SYOC) supports four OYF communities (Boston, Denver, Houston, and Los Angeles) with promising and scalable approaches to reconnecting Opportunity Youth to meaningful education and employment pathways. Through a competitive grant process, the SYOC advances two core goals:

• Network-wide scaling: Expand the reach and effectiveness of entire collaboratives by serving more youth and improving youth outcomes across all partner organizations. This includes a strengthened commitment to consistent data tracking.
• Focused partner scaling: Provide targeted funding and support to four high-performing direct service partners in each collaborative, enabling rapid growth in prevention or intervention services for Opportunity Youth.

Grantees receive tailored technical assistance, strategic coaching, data support, and access to a national community of practice to share learning and foster innovation.

Learn more about the SYOC communities’ work.

Everyone Counts (EC) is a two-year initiative that helps 15 OYF communities improve the quality, completeness, and use of youth data collected across their partnerships. The effort supports communities in strengthening their capacity to track who is being served, what services are being provided, and what outcomes are achieve, particularly for Opportunity Youth and youth at risk of disconnection. Participants receive an annual stipend, monthly coaching, and opportunities to engage in peer learning, all aimed at building stronger data infrastructure and increasing data completeness. The goal is not to collect larger numbers but to ensure that every youth served is represented in the data.

Beginning in 2025, all OYF collaboratives are participating in an updated annual youth data collection and reporting process. This enhanced approach focuses on collecting aggregate-level data from collaborative partners for the previous calendar year, including the number of opportunity youth and other youth served, as well as key outcomes such as connection to high school, postsecondary education, or employment. Where available, data will be disaggregated by demographic variables to support equity analysis and continuous improvement.

Together, these three initiatives form the foundation for the next phase of using data to increase impact across the Opportunity Youth Forum. Each effort is designed to help communities, and the broader field, gain clearer insight, advance equity in service delivery, and scale what works.

To explore our prior work building data capacity and use across OYF, visit the Data for Impact project pages.