Investing in Partnerships that Make a Difference

The Forum for Community Solutions believes collaboration with partners who share our values of equity, justice, and inclusivity is the key to building the power and influence of those with the least access to opportunity.

Collective Impact Forum

A prime example of the work we do to encourage multi-sector partnerships is the Collective Impact Forum. Collective impact is a strategic approach designed to solve complex issues through deep cross system/cross sector community collaborations. To this end, we co-convene with FSG, the Collective Impact Forum, which brings together an online community for those practicing collective impact to find the tools, resources, and support they need.

Click here to join the community and learn more about the Collective Impact Forum.

Opportunity Youth

In our opportunity youth-related work, we support and participate in many kinds of multi-sector partnerships – below are just a few of the many critical partnerships we’re engaged in.

Opportunity Youth Forum

The Opportunity Youth Forum was launched in 2012 by the Forum for Community Solutions to leverage momentum of the opportunity youth movement coming out of the White House Council on Community Solutions. The White House Council called for innovative, place-based, collaborative solutions to reconnect the 6.7 million opportunity youth – 16- to 24-year-olds who were out of work and school –  in the United States at that time.

The Opportunity Youth Forum supports a network of over two dozen urban, rural, and tribal communities seeking to scale reconnection pathways that achieve better outcomes in education and employment for opportunity youth. In total, this network works on creating systems-wide and community level changes. Over the past 6 years, the number of opportunity youth has dropped to 4.6 million.

We work with several key partners to design and implement a learning agenda across Opportunity Youth Forum communities, as well as to capture, synthesize, and disseminate lessons from this work. Jobs for the Future is the main implementation and technical assistance partner for the Opportunity Youth Forum. Harder+Company Community Research works closely with the Forum for Community Solutions to facilitate a peer learning community of practice among leaders from Opportunity Youth Forum backbones, and Equal Measure conducts the periodic  ongoing evaluation of the Opportunity Youth Forum.

Learn more about the Opportunity Youth Forum here.

Opportunity Youth United

Another network we partner with is Opportunity Youth United, which is coordinated by the National Council of Young Leaders. OYU is a national movement of young people and champions from all backgrounds committed to creating a society that invests adequately in the education and welfare of its children and youth, supports family and community life, ends mass incarceration and discrimination of all kinds, and is structured to provide opportunity and responsibility for all. The OYU vision: “is a society with opportunity and responsibility, love and respect, education and employment, justice and equality for all. We envision a nation where all young people can reach their highest potential and noblest aspirations in the context of safe, supportive, and healthy communities.”

Learn more about OYU here.

Opportunity Youth Network

We co-convene the Opportunity Youth Network (OYN) with the Forum for Youth Investment and Gap, Inc. OYN was launched by key leaders from nearly 100 national organizations in March 2013 to capitalize on the momentum created by the White House Council on Community Solutions, which brought new visibility and focus to the needs of 16-24 year olds who are not in school and not working. OYN brings together the country’s leading funders and corporations of all sizes, federal, state and local government officials, non-profits and formerly disconnected youth to work together to reduce the number of disconnected youth by one million over five years.

100,000 Opportunities Initiative (™) Demonstration Cities

In 2015, the Forum for Community Solutions, in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation, Starbucks Coffee Company, the Schultz Family Foundation, and Walmart, helped to launch the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative™ an employer-led coalition focused on opportunity youth.

This partnership seeks to create more pathways to economic prosperity for vulnerable youth and connect employers to this underutilized talent pipeline.