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Together, we’re making a difference.
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Many children and youth in Greater Washington face an uphill battle when joining the workforce. When Year Up brought its national model of workforce development to the region, YI invested in its growth. The practices they pioneered in Greater Washington have since become models for the rest of the nation.
Young adults with a high school diploma or GED who are neither employed nor enrolled in higher education are nearly 15% of all 18- to 24-year-olds nationally, which is illustrative of an ever-deepening national opportunity divide. This is Year Up’s target population.
This successful direct service program in the National Capital Region has the credibility to influence policies and practices, including government and corporate hiring practices, and increase the site’s impact on thousands of young adults.
Since its founding, Year Up – National Capital Region has been committed to scaling the program to achieve measurable impact in the Region. Its specific aspirations were to:
- Serve 240 more students per year
- Influence federal, state, and local governments on young adult education and employment
- Create a partnership model with community colleges to forge a pathway for low-income youth to enter college
Results by the Numbers:
- 73 percent increase in staff capacity
- 760 youth enrolled in Year Up NCR during the investment
- 67 percent increase in enrolled students and a 95 percent increase in graduates
- 30 percent increase in the number of students who stayed in the program
- On average, 83 percent of Year Up NCR graduates secured full-time employment at $15/hour or enrolled in full-time postsecondary studies within four months of graduation
- 92 percent increase in employer partners
- 50 percent increase in public funding from local, state and federal governments
Year Up’s National Director of Alumni Relations, Ronda Harris Thompson, sat down with Carol Thompson Cole, YI’s President and CEO, to tell their story.
Ronda Harris Thompson – National Director of Alumni Relations and Former Executive Director 2011-2015, Year Up – National Capital Region: I think we have some perceptions in our country about who is talented and where that talent comes from. Year Up is really helping to break down those perceptions by opening up a back door that allows people to get in who otherwise might not. Once they’re in the door, they can prove that they are just as talented if not, in some cases, better than folks that you would see coming from traditional pathways. Year Up connects these young people with skills training, mentoring, work experience, and job opportunities to realize their potential.
Carol Thompson Cole – President and CEO, YI: Even before they came to the National Capitol Region, Year Up had a strong reputation for being one of the best nonprofits serving young people ages 18-24. When they arrived in the area, their former executive director, Tynesia Boyea Robinson, reached out to us and made a case for how difficult it is for people coming into the NCR to become connected. Since YI is a connector, we realized that we could play a part in building and networking the strong program they had already created in this Region.
Ronda: I was around back then and one of the things that was really unique about YI was how, even before investing, they did a very extensive due diligence process. We brought together national board members, local board members, and national staff members. We also brought in other community organizations in the local market that really understood what we were trying to do and the impact that Year Up was making. It was unlike anything I’d seen from an investor before.
Carol: On the YI side, we were really impressed with the talent that they had in their local office. I think we were also impressed by the commitment that the organization had and how every member of that staff in some way was responsible for the young people being served and mentored. We saw a rigor, a focus, and a discipline in the organization.
Ronda: A lot of times, as a non-profit, you aren’t comfortable being vulnerable with your funders because you run the risk of them seeing your dirty laundry. YI just had a very different approach. They wanted to see what was working well, but, more importantly, I think they were interested in what wasn’t working. That process allowed us to figure out the best possible investment for YI and Year Up, to really get focused on what we wanted to do better in order to help us grow and flourish in this community.
Carol: One area that was particularly successful was in helping Year Up explore new internship avenues. We were really excited about the opportunity to open up the option for federal government jobs. Not only would this provide government jobs, but government contractors could potentially also follow the government’s lead by offering jobs as well. Thus making the amount of jobs available to these young people even bigger. We made the case that these are local young people and, if you get them in and they can have an opportunity to be promoted, you’ll have them as longer-term employees. That has proven to be the case.
Ronda: We can only serve as many young adults as there are internship opportunities. YI’s investment allowed us to go through the process of getting on the GSA schedule to do business with federal government agencies. As a result of that, we had internships with NASA, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Commerce. It really opened up doors for us.
Carol: When you look across our investment in Year Up—in terms of building organizational capacity, diversifying funding, developing partnerships, and forming new models—there were a lot of innovations. We’ve helped Year Up demonstrate what young people can do if given the chance.
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[post_content] => The investment began in 2010 and ended in 2015. youthCONNECT is now a model that YI is adapting in locations throughout the Region. In fact, in 2015, YI brought youthCONNECT to Suitland High School through our Ready for Work investment in Prince George’s County.
The youthCONNECT model is made up of high-performing nonprofits working collaboratively to serve vulnerable youth, ages 14-24, in a single location—like a school—in order to improve the following: Education outcomes, Career outcomes, and Healthy behaviors.
FUNDING
youthCONNECT was supported by a $32 million dollar investment. The money was a combination of the federal government’s Social Innovation Fund, YI investment capital, and matching funds from philanthropic institutions and businesses.
youthCONNECT would not be possible without the commitment of our match funders. They contributed $13 million to the total funds raised. Their support allowed us to dream big and get results. You can see the full list of match funders in Celebrating youthCONNECT: Innovating for Youth Success.
EVALUATION
YI is very fortunate to have Child Trends committed as its evaluation advisor and consultant for youthCONNECT. Child Trends is the nation’s only nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy center that studies children at all stages of development.
By putting resources towards supporting quality evaluations, the Social Innovation Fund increased the evaluation capacity of YI and all of the nonprofit organizations that made up youthCONNECT.
Through youthCONNECT, each nonprofit implemented rigorous evaluations of its programs. One of these evaluations, completed in 2017, was Solutions for Youth: An Evaluation of the Latin American Youth Center’s Promotor Pathway Program.
EVERYONE BROUGHT SOMETHING TO THE TABLE
youthCONNECT provided a mix of programs to help vulnerable youth transition from high school to successful adulthood. Each nonprofit contributed an innovative program to youthCONNECT:
- College Summit – National Capital Region further grew its core services and evaluated and expanded its Launch model: a new curriculum based on developmentally appropriate activities and lessons targeted towards 9th through 11th graders. The investment allowed them to expand their college preparation and application program offerings to more than just 12th graders, thus treating all four years of high school as a launch pad to college.
- KIPP DC wanted to serve more youth in the Region, and provide a model for other KIPP sites and schools that struggle to get their students across the college finish line. KIPP DC implemented and evaluated KIPP Through College, a program focused on comprehensive provisions to ensure that all KIPP alumni have the tools and support they need to succeed in college.
- Latin American Youth Center expanded and evaluated Promotor Pathways, an intensive new case-management model for reconnecting youth. The youth served by Promotores include some of the District’s youth who are the most disconnected from educational or employment opportunities and face multiple barriers to success—including homelessness, lack of a high school diploma and involvement in the criminal justice system.
- Urban Alliance created a model curriculum outreach program for high school and disconnected youth; formed a high-quality, experimental design study to confirm program objectives of high school graduation rates and college enrollment rates; grew the number of youth served by its high school internship program; and created an alumni services department.
- Whitman-Walker Health (formerly Metro TeenAIDS) expanded the number of youth who receive effective sexual education in Washington, DC by providing a sexual education curriculum to 7th through 12th graders, and by building the capacity of school staff to teach sexual education in public charter schools.
- Year Up – NCR created the Healthy Behaviors Initiative. It was made up of various health education and access services. This includes a life skills curriculum focusing on domestic violence, nutrition, legal resources and working well with those in authority.
FIVE NONPROFITS IN ONE PLACE ON A MISSION
Key to developing the youthCONNECT model is a belief that the network’s coordinated support of a single population of students will yield more than the individual contributions of each network partner. This concept was tested in the Latin American Youth Center Career Academy Public Charter School, where five network partners worked in partnership with the school to support students. The multiple network partner programs delivered services in a single location at the Latin American Youth Center Career Academy Public Charter School. This coordination not only demonstrates that nonprofit partners can adapt their programs for various populations and locations, but also proves they can work collaboratively in one place.
GREATER THAN THE SUM OF OUR PARTS
youthCONNECT is organized around a series of working groups that developed the shared vision for the youthCONNECT model.
Over the years, a total of six working groups, based on role and function, worked together to shape and support the initiative: Executive Directors, Program Directors, Evaluation Directors, Communications Staff, Chief Financial Officers, and Development Staff
The groups have evolved over time. It is now commonplace for the program and evaluation working groups to solve problems, share best practices, collaborate, and leverage each other’s expertise. A periodic community of practice gatherings open to all staff, and orchestrated by YI, provides an opportunity for network partners to come together to learn and deepen network relationships.
Under the guidance of Child Trends, the Common Outcomes Framework (COF) was created by the evaluation working group and YI. The COF functions as youthCONNECT’s logic model. We use it to evaluate the effectiveness of youthCONNECT through a common set of indicators, which all of the nonprofits within youthCONNECT track as they progress towards youthCONNECT’s goals:
- Attaining a post-secondary credential and/or employment
- Sustained healthy behaviors across all six nonprofits within youthCONNECT
In order to reach the goals of the youthCONNECT initiative, our nonprofit partners agreed to:
- Individually and collectively work toward a shared set of outcomes according to the metrics identified within the COF.
- Help to build an open environment that supports the sharing of information, data and best practices to solve problems and strengthen program design, program delivery, and performance evaluation.
- Leverage each other’s resources to ensure youth receive the support they need to become successful adults.
COLLABORATION IS THE KEY
youthCONNECT represents the best in collaboration, putting innovative solutions into practice, measuring outcomes, and then creating a ripple effect by scaling and adapting what works.
We know vulnerable youth are struggling to transition to a thriving adulthood. They are slipping through the cracks, and no single group can address this challenge alone.
Through countless brainstorming sessions, strategic discussions, and interactions with our six nonprofit partners (College Summit – NCR, KIPP DC, Latin American Youth Center, Whitman-Walker Health, Urban Alliance – NCR, and Year Up – NCR), Child Trends, Monitor Deloitte, and other friends and advisors, we catalyzed a collaborative of nonprofits in Greater Washington.
YI’S ROLE IN YOUTHCONNECT
YI provides strategic assistance to strengthen and support youthCONNECT. Here is what we do:
- Big Picture Guidance – Work together to develop a strategic agenda
- Funding – Provide funding for the collaborative
- Advocacy – Identify opportunities to educate leaders on policies affecting youth
- Evaluation – Lead the development of shared outcomes against which the organizational partners’ activities are measured; Support data collection and assessment of each program’s performance
- Meeting Facilitation – Guide meetings towards group consensus and action
- Logistics – Support collaborative meetings by scheduling, setting agenda and capturing next steps
- Communications – Manage and coordinate external communications
- Research and Analysis – Support continuous learning by researching, aggregating and analyzing data to find trends and report back to organizational partners
LEARNING
YI devotes considerable resources to share the lessons it has learned. We hope you find these resources useful to your work.
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Many children and youth in Greater Washington face an uphill battle when joining the workforce. When Year Up brought its national model of workforce development to the region, YI invested in its growth. The practices they pioneered in Greater Washington have since become models for the rest of the nation.
Young adults with a high school diploma or GED who are neither employed nor enrolled in higher education are nearly 15% of all 18- to 24-year-olds nationally, which is illustrative of an ever-deepening national opportunity divide. This is Year Up’s target population.
This successful direct service program in the National Capital Region has the credibility to influence policies and practices, including government and corporate hiring practices, and increase the site’s impact on thousands of young adults.
Since its founding, Year Up – National Capital Region has been committed to scaling the program to achieve measurable impact in the Region. Its specific aspirations were to:
- Serve 240 more students per year
- Influence federal, state, and local governments on young adult education and employment
- Create a partnership model with community colleges to forge a pathway for low-income youth to enter college
Results by the Numbers:
- 73 percent increase in staff capacity
- 760 youth enrolled in Year Up NCR during the investment
- 67 percent increase in enrolled students and a 95 percent increase in graduates
- 30 percent increase in the number of students who stayed in the program
- On average, 83 percent of Year Up NCR graduates secured full-time employment at $15/hour or enrolled in full-time postsecondary studies within four months of graduation
- 92 percent increase in employer partners
- 50 percent increase in public funding from local, state and federal governments
Year Up’s National Director of Alumni Relations, Ronda Harris Thompson, sat down with Carol Thompson Cole, YI’s President and CEO, to tell their story.
Ronda Harris Thompson – National Director of Alumni Relations and Former Executive Director 2011-2015, Year Up – National Capital Region: I think we have some perceptions in our country about who is talented and where that talent comes from. Year Up is really helping to break down those perceptions by opening up a back door that allows people to get in who otherwise might not. Once they’re in the door, they can prove that they are just as talented if not, in some cases, better than folks that you would see coming from traditional pathways. Year Up connects these young people with skills training, mentoring, work experience, and job opportunities to realize their potential.
Carol Thompson Cole – President and CEO, YI: Even before they came to the National Capitol Region, Year Up had a strong reputation for being one of the best nonprofits serving young people ages 18-24. When they arrived in the area, their former executive director, Tynesia Boyea Robinson, reached out to us and made a case for how difficult it is for people coming into the NCR to become connected. Since YI is a connector, we realized that we could play a part in building and networking the strong program they had already created in this Region.
Ronda: I was around back then and one of the things that was really unique about YI was how, even before investing, they did a very extensive due diligence process. We brought together national board members, local board members, and national staff members. We also brought in other community organizations in the local market that really understood what we were trying to do and the impact that Year Up was making. It was unlike anything I’d seen from an investor before.
Carol: On the YI side, we were really impressed with the talent that they had in their local office. I think we were also impressed by the commitment that the organization had and how every member of that staff in some way was responsible for the young people being served and mentored. We saw a rigor, a focus, and a discipline in the organization.
Ronda: A lot of times, as a non-profit, you aren’t comfortable being vulnerable with your funders because you run the risk of them seeing your dirty laundry. YI just had a very different approach. They wanted to see what was working well, but, more importantly, I think they were interested in what wasn’t working. That process allowed us to figure out the best possible investment for YI and Year Up, to really get focused on what we wanted to do better in order to help us grow and flourish in this community.
Carol: One area that was particularly successful was in helping Year Up explore new internship avenues. We were really excited about the opportunity to open up the option for federal government jobs. Not only would this provide government jobs, but government contractors could potentially also follow the government’s lead by offering jobs as well. Thus making the amount of jobs available to these young people even bigger. We made the case that these are local young people and, if you get them in and they can have an opportunity to be promoted, you’ll have them as longer-term employees. That has proven to be the case.
Ronda: We can only serve as many young adults as there are internship opportunities. YI’s investment allowed us to go through the process of getting on the GSA schedule to do business with federal government agencies. As a result of that, we had internships with NASA, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Commerce. It really opened up doors for us.
Carol: When you look across our investment in Year Up—in terms of building organizational capacity, diversifying funding, developing partnerships, and forming new models—there were a lot of innovations. We’ve helped Year Up demonstrate what young people can do if given the chance.
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Year Up
Duration:
5 Years
Amount Invested:
$4,500,000.00
Read More
Year Up – National Capital Region
youthCONNECT
Duration:
5 Years
Amount Invested:
$32,000,000.00
Read More
youthCONNECT
