Our work is built out of our values and our vision of a future where communities create their own vibrant and lasting solutions to the social and economic problems that they face.
To help to create this future, the Forum for Community Solutions focuses on several areas of work, including collaboration, supporting communities to build power, and the opportunity youth movement.
Collaboration
The Forum for Community Solutions believes in the central role of community members to lead the charge and advance individual and community change. We are the co-founder and co-convenor of the Collective Impact Forum, a meeting place of over 20,000 practitioners of community-based collaborative practice.
Collaboration is infused throughout our work, from our own Opportunity Youth Forum, to our work supporting how funders can better collaborate together for to support vulnerable populations.
Learn more about our work on Collaboration here, including our work supporting multi-sector partnerships and funder collaboration.
The Forum for Community Solutions believes in the central role of community members to lead the charge and advance individual and community change.
Community Power Building
The Forum for Community Solutions promotes collaborative, community-based efforts that build the power and influence of those with the least access to opportunity. We support communities to come together to expand mobility, eliminate systemic barriers, and create their own solutions to their most pressing challenges. Our work co-convening with FSG the Collective Impact Forum, supports the goal of utlizing collective impact, a strategy designed to solve complex issues through deep cross system and cross sector community collaboration. We also work in partnership with the Neighborhood Funders Group to enable funders and the grantmaking process to improve the effectiveness of funding at the local level. Learn more about our Community Power Building projects here.
Opportunity Youth
The Forum for Community Solutions launched the Opportunity Youth Forum in 2012 to leverage momentum of the opportunity youth movement coming out of the White House Council on Community Solutions. At that time, there were 6.7 million young people not connected to either education or job opportunities.
The Opportunity Youth Forum now 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.
Learn more about opportunity youth here; and find out more about the Opportunity Youth Forum here.