Authored by: Mamadou Ndiaye, Senior Director, Jobs for the Future (JFF), and Yelena Nemoy, Deputy Director of the Opportunity Youth Forum (OYF) at the Aspen Institute

The Building Ecosystems for Youth Opportunity (BEYO) initiative, launched in 2021 by the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions in partnership with Jobs for the Future (JFF),  set out to support eight innovative OYF collaboratives across the country in scaling evidence-based, high-quality pathways to postsecondary completion and careers for opportunity youth. 

With primary support from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and additional support from Prudential Financial and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Forum for Community Solutions invested a total of $1.6 million in these collaboratives in order to support deepening and scaling pathways that improve postsecondary and career success of opportunity youth, while at the same time strengthening local youth-serving ecosystems to support this population more effectively. Additionally, collaboratives in the BEYO portfolio received technical assistance and coaching from JFF and the Forum for Community Solutions. 

The initiative’s objectives were threefold:

• Expand proven pathways that connect opportunity youth to postsecondary education and family-sustaining careers.
• Strengthen local youth-serving ecosystems by building collaborative capacity across schools, employers, postsecondary institutions, and community organizations.
• Inform the field by capturing lessons learned and scaling strategies to guide future investments and policy change.

Over four years, BEYO communities met these objectives by scaling, replicating and expanding existing pathways; putting in place new innovative reconnection programs; securing state funding streams for postsecondary support programs; and advancing statewide legislature aimed at preventing disconnection from school.  

Read the Report and Learn More

This report documents strategies for success that communities undertook to achieve these important wins, while also outlining enduring and transferable lessons that the authors believe can inform other efforts – including by local collaboratives, national intermediaries, and philanthropy – to further scale promising pathways to postsecondary and career success that are still elusive for millions of young adults nationwide. 

This work was made possible by the generous support and thoughtful partnership of JPMorgan Chase & Co. The authors are also grateful to our BEYO community partners and young leaders who generously shared their insights, experiences and knowledge that make up the core of this report.  

Learn about the co-authors:

Mamadou Ndiaye is a Senior Director at JFF working to open up high wage and high growth careers to underserved populations with a focus on young adults who are facing barriers in the labor market including opportunity youth. Mamadou works with a range of stakeholders including communitie in several regions across the country, postsecondary institutions, employers, community-based organizations, state and federal agencies, and young adults to develop pathways that accelerate economic advancement and give employers access to the talent they need to grow their businesses. His areas of expertise include strategic advising, talent pipeline development, program planning and implementation, sector-based pathway development, community-based cross-sector collaboration, youth development and leadership, and employer engagement.

Yelena Nemoy is the Deputy Director for the Opportunity Youth Forum at the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions. In this role, Yelena focuses on OYF program activities and is a part of the design team for the OYF national learning agenda and technical assistance for OYF communities. Additionally, Yelena leads a portfolio of grants that support a subset of OYF communities in scaling evidence-based and promising pathways. Prior to joining the Forum for Community Solutions, Yelena was the Project Manager at the National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC). In this role, Yelena oversaw NYEC’s expanding education options work and focused on issues of policy and practice that promote quality secondary and postsecondary education and training pathways leading to living wage careers.

About JFF

Jobs for the Future (JFF) is a national nonprofit that drives transformation of the U.S. education and workforce systems to achieve economic success for people, businesses, and communities. We do this by designing solutions, scaling best practices, influencing policy and action, and investing in innovation. We forge deep partnerships with employers, investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and education and workforce development providers to break down barriers and reimagine what’s possible.

JFF’s goal is to align education, workforce, and employment changemakers toward a shared North Star: By 2033, 75 million Americans facing barriers to economic advancement will have quality jobs. JFF has partnered with AFCS for more than a decade to change the narrative about young adults and transform the systems that serve them with the goal to improve youth education and labor market outcomes so that young people can realize their full potential.

About AFCS 

The Aspen Institute 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 determine their own solutions to their most pressing challenges. We envision a future where communities self-determine their own vibrant and lasting solutions to the social and economic problems that they face. We believe that if communities have more power to lead change, they will create a just and equitable society.

The Opportunity Youth Forum (OYF) began in 2012 (as the “Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund”) to use momentum coming out of the White  House Council for Community Solutions.1 It is comprised of a network of urban, rural, and  Indigenous communities seeking to scale multiple reconnection pathways that achieve better outcomes in education and careers for opportunity youth.2 Approximately one-quarter of all opportunity youth in the United States live in the areas in and around Opportunity Youth Forum communities.