In 2012, a White House-convened cross-sector leadership group examined nationwide community challenges and released landmark reports that led to the launch of the Forum for Community Solutions at the Aspen Institute.
2013
Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund is Launched
The Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund launched with 21 grants across the U.S., committing an initial $6 million in cross-sector collaboration to reconnect 6.7 million young Americans with education and the workforce.
2014
Landmark Initiative ‘Opportunity Works’ is Launched
Opportunity Works, a landmark initiative launched with Jobs for the Future, built evidence-based strategies to reconnect opportunity youth with career and education pathways through local partnerships nationwide.
2015
100,000 Opportunities Initiative is Launched
The 100,000 Opportunities Initiative™, an employer-led coalition focused on opportunity youth, launched to expand economic opportunities by helping local collaboratives engage employers and strengthen career and education pathways.
2016
Pathways to Careers Fund is Established
The Pathways to Careers Fund launched to expand innovative career pathways for opportunity youth, supporting employer partnerships that link education and training to stronger job placement and retention outcomes.
2017
Transition to Opportunity Youth Forum + Expansion
The Incentive Fund expanded into the Opportunity Youth Forum (OYF), a national network of over 40 community collaboratives focused on scaling reconnection pathways that improve education, employment, & well-being outcomes for OY.
2018
Global, Rural, Tribal & Indigenous Expansion
GOYN is launched to address global youth unemployment and expand pathways to economic opportunity worldwide, alongside OYF broadening its partnerships with Rural, Tribal, & Indigenous communities across the U.S.
2018
Equity Counts is Launched
Equity Countsis launched to build data collection capacity to inform data-driven programmatic and policy decisions, increase quality of services, and ultimately accelerate improved and more equitable outcomes for opportunity youth.
2019
Data for Impact Initiative are Launched
The Data for Impact (D4I) Initiative was established to create a shared approach for measuring youth outcomes across the OYF network and provide data-focused technical assistance and capacity-building support.
2019
Healing Centered Organizing Initiative are Launched
The Healing Centered Organizing Initiative launched to expand OYF’s commitment to youth-led, healing-centered change by identifying and elevating best practices in restorative healing and community organizing.
2020
Fresh Tracks joins the Forum
Fresh Tracks, an outdoors initiative for opportunity youth, inspired by a call from President Obama in 2015 for bold new programs that use the outdoors to broaden horizons for young Americans facing persistent opportunity gaps joins the OYF.
2020
Rapid Response Fund is Launched
The OYF Rapid Response Fundwas launched to support OYF collaboratives and opportunity youth to access benefits associated with COVID-19 relief efforts and advocate for youth and young adults in economic recovery.
2021
Youth-Led Change Fund is Launched
The Youth-Led Change Fund launched to support & document strategies that empower young people to lead efforts advancing equity and justice, while also promoting healing and well-being practices.
2021
Building Ecosystems for Youth Opportunity Launch
The Building Ecosystems for Youth Opportunity (BEYO) initiative launched to support eight innovative OYF collaboratives in scaling evidence-based pathways to postsecondary completion and career opportunities for opportunity youth.
2022
Belonging, Meaning, Wellbeing, & Purpose Launch
The Belonging, Meaning, Wellbeing, & Purpose (BMWP) framework launched to promote a holistic approach to improving youth outcomes, including social inclusion, life satisfaction, graduation rates, civic engagement, health, & wellbeing.
2022
Texas Opportunity Youth Network (TOYN) Launch
The Texas Opportunity Youth Network (TOYN) launched as a statewide initiative to strengthen community capacity and support opportunity youth across Texas in achieving their education, career, and leadership goals.
2023
Criminal Justice Reform Network is Launched
The Justice in Community network launched to help communities address systemic barriers to justice by elevating historically marginalized voices and advancing sustainable, community-driven solutions.
2023
Youth-Led Change Summit Takes Place
OYF’s first Youth-Led Change Summittook place to center youth voice and leadership, empowering young people to identify challenges, advocate for their interests, and design their own solutions.
2024
Scaling Youth Outcomes Cohort (SYOC)
The Scaling Youth Outcomes Cohort (SYOC) launched to provide targeted impact funding and scalable support to collaboratives in Boston, Houston, Denver, & LA to expand prevention and intervention services for opportunity youth.
2024
Everyone Counts is Launched
Everyone Counts launched to help 15 OYF communities strengthen the quality and use of youth data, improving their ability to track services, participation, and outcomes across partnerships.
2025
Creative Youth Development (CYD) is Launched
The Creative Youth Development initiative is launched to integrate arts, culture, & workforce pathways to support young people build skills, earn credentials, strengthen identity, & access economic opportunity through creative expression.
Our Journey
Historical Perspectives – Why Community Solutions?
Melody Barnes, Chair – AIFCS, describes the early history of the Forum for Community Solutions.
Our nation is facing some of the greatest challenges in a generation. While our nonprofits, philanthropists and other social sector leaders have stepped up to fill gaps, increase their impact and serve more people in need, we know that the social challenges we face today are too complex for any single actor to fully address on their own. We know that dramatic, community-wide progress on a problem requires the engagement of all sectors in a community: nonprofits, business, philanthropy and government pulling together, in the same direction.
The encouraging news is that this kind of collaborative progress is happening in a number of communities around the country. A analysis completed by The Bridgespan Group for the White House Council for Community Solutions identified 12 communities across the country where there has been 10 percent-plus progress on a community-wide metric, and another 100-plus communities that are making progress in this direction. Since that time, much more research has validated that when communities come together, in well-structured multi-sectored partnerships, change is possible.
In 2012, a cross-sector leadership group convened by the White House examined this situation, and released several seminal reports that served to launch the Forum for Community Solutions at the Aspen Institute. Among these was the White House Council on Community Solutions report Community Solutions for Opportunity Youth, which called for innovative, place-based, collaborative solutions to reconnect the 6 million opportunity youth in the United States at that time. (Opportunity youth are young people aged 16 to 24, who are neither connected to education nor to the workforce.)
Successful community collaboratives require resources and support for their infrastructure needs, as well as the opportunity to engage with like-minded partners to share ideas that will amplify their collective impact. To address this need, and build on the work of the White House Council, the Aspen Institute launched the Forum for Community Solutions. You can find out more about our work here; we also hope you will reach out and get engaged with our work or in your local community.
Thought-Leadership I Youth Opportunity I Systems-Change
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