Statewide Networks
The Opportunity Youth Forum supports a growing ecosystem of state networks working to transform cradle-to-career policy, funding and systems to ensure all young people can thrive.
State networks are better able to accelerate and catalyze place-based partnerships to move further in advancing economic mobility and wellbeing for youth and families together than individual communities could alone. By connecting local collaboratives across a state with young leaders, public systems, and community partners, these networks scale effective practices, strengthen advocacy efforts, transform narratives, and mobilize action to improve opportunities and education and workforce outcomes for young people across entire states.
Emergent Statewide Partnerships
In addition to the established networks above, OYF supports partners in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Washington that are developing statewide strategies and collaboration. While these efforts do not currently operate as formal state networks, partners are working across communities and systems to strengthen reengagement, expand opportunity, and advance shared priorities for young people.
Belonging, Meaning, Well-being and Purpose (BMWP) in Minnesota
Distinct among OYF’s state level work is the Minnesota Community of Practice. Anchored by Youthprise, and engaging Minnesota’s existing Cradle to Career infrastructure, current membership spans 14 funders, 5 Tribal Nations, and 12 nonprofits, not all of them youth-focused. Its current charge is creating the conditions for building the trusted relationships and shared practice that collaboration requires.
All Young People Thriving: Transforming Systems, Scaling Impact
Every young person deserves the opportunity to build a life of meaning, wellbeing, purpose, and economic mobility. Yet across our states, millions of young people face systemic barriers that disconnect them from education, stable employment, and community support systems.
Historically, state systems have been organized around individual programs rather than comprehensive youth-centered strategies that are rooted in evidence and responsive to community voice. This fragmentation creates gaps where young people furthest from opportunity – including those who are unhoused, system-involved, or navigating under-resourced rural and urban communities – too often fall through. To achieve lasting change, we must transform the underlying systems.
Our State Networks Community of Practice serves as a connective tissue, uniting place-based partnerships and cross-sector partners. Aligned with our 10-year impact goal of reducing youth disconnection by 500,000 young people and preventing disconnection in millions more youth, and grounded in the deep authenticity of local leadership, our approach focuses on policy and funding improvement, systemic alignment, data infrastructure, and narrative change. Networks are convened by independent organizations or incubated by the Forum for Community Solutions team. Collectively, they bring together over 250 partner organizations in states home to over 11 million young people ages 16 to 24. Grounded in the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions’ (AFCS) values and strategic approaches, our state networks focus on four mutually reinforcing core strategies:
1. Policy & Systems Influence
State networks act as a supportive “connective tissue” to coordinate local place-based leaders to influence state policies and align funding structures around shared youth-advancement goals. By breaking down agency silos, building data-sharing agreements, and simplifying access to funding, existing resources can work more cohesively for communities and young people, and coalitions can develop support for new resources.
2. Building Capability & Local Delivery Infrastructure
Statewide policy only succeeds when there is a strong local delivery infrastructure to translate state-level goals into community-level results. We invest heavily in place-based partnerships: through learning, funding, data, technical assistance and raising awareness through the national platform of the Aspen Institute. State networks support the development and proliferation of local collaboratives, the statewide adoption of best practices – and facilitate peer learning, joint projects and statehouse advocacy calibrated to regional context. This includes embedding the Belonging, Meaning, Wellbeing and Purpose (BMWP) nationally tested research framework into statewide institutional practices.
3. Data and Analytics: Our Impact Team calculates statewide OYF Common Measures of youth disconnection, economic impact data, and other information to compliment similar local-level datasets for place-based partnerships. We provide technical assistancoe to partners to use this and other data to guide strategy, set goals and measure progress, and make the case for public and private investment in evidence-informed interventions. Our BMWP Measurement tools and coaching help youth-serving programs and systems examine their work and the ways in which it helps young people to thrive.
4. Narrative Change: Who are we but the stories we tell about ourselves and each other? We support youth-led storytelling and narrative change strategy to shift public and political will toward systemic equity. This includes crafting, testing and amplifying tailored narrative frames across different political landscapes to build legislative, executive, and philanthropic champions.
Featured StateWide Networks
