Each year, the Opportunity Youth Forum’s external evaluators, Equal Measure, conduct an extensive assessment of the progress of OYF, looking at the characteristics of collaboratives  and collaborative capacity; they also assess progress made on systems-level changes in OYF communities. In this report, Equal Measure looks at developments in 2024, as well as charting progress over the past six years.

Infographic  |   Executive Summary  |  Full Report

Key Findings:

In OYF communities in 2023 (our most recent data on youth disconnection), 11.2 percent of 16-24-year-olds were not working and not in school, returning the overall percentage of opportunity youth in these communities nearly to the low reached before the pandemic. The 2-percentage point reduction between 2021 and 2023 represents nearly 150,000 fewer opportunity youth.

Further, evidence continues to grow that supports the efficacy and impact of the OYF network and the work of individual collaboratives:

For more information, and other detailed findings from across the OYF network on the characteristics, capacity and local systems change impacts of OYF collaboratives specifically in 2024, please see these OYF 2024 Assessment resources:

Infographic  |   Executive Summary  |  Full Report