Mapping the Diversity of OYF Collaboratives: A Guide to Understanding the OYF Network is a new report from the Opportunity Youth Forum’s independent evaluators, Equal Measure.
Based on interviews with leads at 12 OYF collaboratives, and interviews with partners and youth leaders from four of these collaboratives, Equal Measure explored the core elements that make up each collaborative. The report’s goal is to increase understanding about how a diverse set of OYF collaboratives conceptualize their work, and how they make progress toward OYF’s shared goals.
Specifically, the objectives of this study were to:
- Better understand collaboratives’ origin stories;
- Learn how collaboratives articulate the root causes of youth disconnection in their communities;
- Explore how collaboratives’ identities, origin stories, and structures influence how they address youth disconnection and its root causes in their communities.
By understanding the underlying diversity of collaboratives in the OYF network, the brief seeks also to understand how these differences translate into different approaches to systems level change.
Through their interviews with leads, partners, and youth leaders with a sample of OYF collaboratives, Equal Measure heard distinct, yet categorizable, ways in which collaboratives talked about who they are, and as a community, why they exist, how they are structured, and how they approach their work. They then codified these characteristics and organized them under two emerging elements, identity and approach, each with multiple components:
The components that make up a collaborative’s identity and approach are the foundation of a collaborative’s values, goals, and functions. By understanding how collaboratives align within these components, the OYF network can learn from its diversity, and supports can be tailored to reflect each collaborative’s unique profile.