Fresh Tracks
A Platform for Community Wellbeing, Cultural Connection, and Systems Change
Fresh Tracks, an initiative of the Opportunity Youth Forum, is a national platform advancing access and opportunity to community wellbeing, civic leadership, and systems change through the healing power of culture and the outdoors.
About Fresh Tracks
What began as a cross-cultural youth leadership program has grown into a broader movement and field-building platform that brings together community leaders, young people, elders, policymakers, and philanthropic partners to design solutions rooted in lived experience and cultural wisdom.
Fresh Tracks believes that thriving communities are built through relationships across generations, cultures, and sectors. By creating spaces for collaboration and shared learning, we support communities as they define their own pathways toward wellbeing, resilience, and opportunity.
At its heart, Fresh Tracks is about reconnecting people—to one another, to culture, and to the natural world—as a foundation for strengthening communities and transforming systems.
Our Vision
A future where communities lead the transformation of systems so that wellbeing, cultural strength, and opportunity are accessible to all.
Our Approach
Fresh Tracks operates as a platform that brings together community leaders, philanthropy, policy partners, and institutions to advance shared solutions. Our work is grounded in three guiding principles:
Community-Led Change
Communities hold the knowledge and leadership necessary to shape their own futures. Fresh Tracks supports community-driven solutions that are rooted in cultural knowledge, local leadership, and lived experience.
Intergenerational Leadership
Sustainable change happens when young people, elders, and community leaders work together. Fresh Tracks creates spaces for intergenerational collaboration that honors cultural knowledge and supports emerging leadership.
Culture and Nature as Pathways to Wellbeing
Connection to culture, land, and the outdoors plays a vital role in strengthening individual and community wellbeing. Fresh Tracks centers these connections as essential pathways to resilience and civic participation.We partner with communities, workforce leaders, employers, and young people to strengthen career pathways, improve job quality, expand work-based learning opportunities, and ensure young people can access meaningful employment that supports long-term economic mobility and wellbeing. This work includes employer engagement, summer youth employment, future-of-work initiatives, and investments in innovative workforce strategies.
Fresh Tracks Today: Three Pillars of Field Building
Over the past decade, Fresh Tracks has evolved into a platform that supports community-driven solutions through three interconnected initiatives.
The Open Pathways Project
Advancing Policy and Systems Change
The Open Pathways Project works with community leaders, policymakers, and national partners to identify and advance policy solutions that expand opportunities for connection to the outdoors, cultural revitalization, and community wellbeing.
Through research, convenings, and collaborative policy development, Open Pathways helps bridge community voices with decision-making spaces where systemic change can occur.
Community Wellbeing Platform
Mobilizing Philanthropy and Partnerships
Fresh Tracks convenes philanthropic leaders, community organizations, and national partners to strengthen investment in community wellbeing and cultural resilience.
These partnerships help mobilize resources, coordinate strategy across organizations, and support collaborative initiatives that address shared challenges facing communities.
By connecting philanthropy with community leadership, Fresh Tracks helps build the infrastructure needed for long-term systems change
The Wellbeing Tool
Strengthening Community Voice Through Data
The Wellbeing Tool is an emerging community-centered framework that allows communities to define and measure wellbeing on their own terms.
Developed through a collaborative process with community leaders and researchers, the tool combines participatory research with culturally responsive metrics to help communities collect meaningful data about their wellbeing.
This approach challenges traditional models of measurement by centering community knowledge and lived experience. The goal is to equip communities with tools that strengthen local decision-making, guide program development, and inform policy.
Interwoven Futures – Indigenous Leadership and Community Partnerships
Indigenous leadership has played a central role in shaping the work of Fresh Tracks.
Through partnerships with Native Americans in Philanthropy and the Native, Indigenous, and Tribal Community of Practice, Fresh Tracks supports Indigenous-led initiatives that advance community wellbeing, cultural revitalization, and environmental stewardship.
These partnerships create opportunities for Indigenous leaders, elders, and young people to share knowledge, shape policy conversations, and strengthen pathways for community leadership.
A Growing Movement
Fresh Tracks continues to grow as a network of communities, organizations, and leaders committed to advancing wellbeing through culture, connection to nature, and community-led change.
By working across sectors—including philanthropy, policy, research, and community leadership—Fresh Tracks helps bridge silos and strengthen collaboration across the field.
Together, we are building a future where communities are equipped to lead solutions that strengthen wellbeing, restore connection, and expand opportunity for generations to come.
Honoring Land, Culture, and Community
Since time immemorial, Indigenous communities across the Americas have demonstrated resilience and leadership in protecting their lands, cultures, and ways of life.
Fresh Tracks honors the leadership of Indigenous communities and recognizes that the path toward an equitable future must be guided by those who have long stewarded these lands and traditions.
We encourage all partners and participants to learn about the original stewards of the lands where they live and work, and to support Indigenous leadership in shaping the future.
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