The Wallace Foundation Announces New Initiative to Strengthen Positive Youth Development Opportunities for Adolescents in Seven Communities

PRESS CONTACTS

Devin Simpson
The Hatcher Group
DSimpson@thehatchergroup.com​, 703-969-8314 

Melissa Connerton
The Wallace Foundation 
MConnerton@wallacefoundation.org, 212-251-9750 
 

The Wallace Foundation Announces New Initiative to Strengthen Positive Youth Development Opportunities for Adolescents in Seven Communities

Partnerships selected for six-year effort of up to $120 million to strengthen high-quality, interest-driven career awareness and exploration opportunities for youth outside the classroom

 New York, N.Y. — October 8, 2025— A new initiative is launching to support seven communities across the country in addressing their economic mobility goals by expanding enrichment and career-focused opportunities for young people.

Participating communities are Adams County and Broomfield County, Colorado; Akron, Ohio; Hamilton County, Tennessee; Poughkeepsie, New York; Monterey County, California; South Salt Lake City and Millcreek, Utah; and Wayne County, New York.

Supported by The Wallace Foundation, the Advancing Opportunities for Adolescents initiative will explore how schools, nonprofits, government agencies, businesses, and other entities can deepen their collaboration with the afterschool, enrichment, and summer programs that comprise the community’s out-of-school sector. 

The initiative aims to provide adolescents in the middle through early high school years with greater access to out-of-school opportunities that spark new interests, skills, and an awareness of potential future careers they may choose to pursue. Adolescents and their families will have more formalized supports available to help them navigate across systems to find programs and resources they need. Participating communities will also work to prioritize high-quality youth development opportunities, by devoting more attention and resources, increasing capacity, building sustainable funding, and carrying out a shared vision for how youth development practices can support the whole child.

Research shows programs that intentionally embed positive youth development practices — such as centering positive relationships, encouraging youth agency and leadership, and offering opportunities for young people to learn and develop new skills and interests — can help young people identify and set goals, feel supported, motivated, and connected to the community. Having these kinds of high-quality, interest-driven opportunities can also help young people find out about and explore future careers that may appeal to them, as well as build the foundational competencies they need to thrive. Young people spend more than 80 percent of time learning outside of school— at afterschool and summer programs, in libraries, museums, science centers, at home or in the community —and out-of-school time programs are uniquely positioned to provide these kinds of opportunities.

Wallace anticipates investing approximately $6 million to $10 million into each community over the course of the initiative. Exact funding for each will be determined during the planning and pilot years (2026-2027) and based on factors such as poverty levels, number of youth being served, and other considerations. Funding from Wallace is intended to augment investments participating communities are already making for young people. Communities will have access to technical assistance, peer learning opportunities, and other resources. The full initiative budget also includes costs for research, communications, national experts serving as advisors, and more.

Selected Communities

Following a year of vision-setting and planning, partnerships will concentrate their efforts on a range of core activities, which include:

• Strengthening and Expanding Collaboration with the community’s youth development sector, including expanding the quantity and quality of opportunities available to youth furthest from opportunity.
• Bolstering Youth Development Practices and Programs by identifying what interests young people and piloting efforts in one or two underserved areas, strengthening programming and focusing on professional development for adults working with youth.
• Establishing or Strengthening Relationship-Based “Navigation”, pairing each young person with a caring adult who co-creates a personalized, strengths-based plan with them and their support network. These adults will help connect adolescents to resources and opportunities that remove barriers they face and support their goals.
• Collecting and Analyzing Data across the community to track program availability, cost, participation, and more and to support continuous improvement and cost modeling.
• Executing a Strategic Communications Plan to build internal and external support, using compelling stories and data to promote understanding and sustainability.
• Planning for Sustainable Funding by mapping public and private funding sources (federal, state, and local) and identifying how to address gaps and develop strategies to sustain youth development and navigation efforts beyond the life of the initiative.
• Participating in national and local research to document the impact on youth outcomes, produce evidence-based tools and playbooks, and share lessons learned.

“This initiative is about working with communities to help them build lasting systems that support young people’s growth, learning, and well-being based on a set of proven principles,” said Gigi Antoni, vice president of youth development at The Wallace Foundation. “Although these seven partnerships have different zip codes, what they all have in common is their commitment to economic mobility, their openness to learning and trying new approaches, and the strong foundation they each have in place to take on this endeavor.”

The national research study in which partnerships will participate will be led by American Institutes for Research (AIR). It is intended to document approaches and outcomes across systems, programs, and youth levels. This includes considerations such as: 

• Learning how cross-sector partnerships can leverage existing out-of-school time programs to advance their goals for youth economic mobility
• Understanding how communities can, at scale, expand the capacity of the out-of-school time sector to provide high quality developmental programs that include a focus on career awareness, exploration, and preparation
• Understanding how cross-sector partnerships can create personalized supports to help young people connect the interests and skills they have developed in the out-of-school time sector to additional opportunities that can advance their goals for the future

In addition to local benefits, the initiative also aims to benefit the broader field by capturing and sharing insights based on what is learned. This may include:

• A “community playbook” highlighting policy and practice changes at the system/backbone level and the resulting changes in practice among youth-serving adults, which could guide the creation of similar efforts in other communities
• Evidence-based tools to help others carry out key partnership activities, such as an interactive tool for asset mapping/gap analysis or an illustrated interactive guide for navigator programs
• Evidence demonstrating the role that the youth development sector, through out-of-school time programming, can play in supporting youth interest exploration and career awareness and preparation for early adolescents
• Evidence about the impacts of such efforts on youth outcomes

Additionally, partnerships will conduct their own local research that aligns with each community’s goals for their youth.

“Out-of-school time is an ideal place for young people to develop their interests, passions, and plans for the future,” said Bronwyn Bevan, vice president of research at The Wallace Foundation. “We are excited to learn how each of the seven partnerships intentionally leverages the sector to help youth realize their goals."

In addition to American Institutes for Research, other organizations supporting the initiative as thought partners and providing technical assistance include Children’s Funding Project; Community Wealth Partners; Every Hour Counts; FrameWorks Institute; The Institute for Success Planning at The EdRedesign Lab at Harvard Graduate School of Education; and The Marlo Companies. Additional partners will be added as the initiative unfolds.

The seven communities were selected following an extensive process, which started with an “Open Call” that drew expressions of interest from more than 1,700 communities. To better understand the work already being done on the ground, along with what communities might want to strengthen, Wallace began a period of learning and exploration of what communities were doing to serve adolescents, focusing on 30 cross-sector partnerships. After refining the initiative design based on these insights, reviewing proposals, and conducting site visits, the final set of seven partnerships was invited to participate in the cohort. 

¹ For the Adams County Youth Initiative DBA Rocky Mountain Partnership Cradle to Career, the Lead Partner is Rocky Mountain Partnership Cradle to Career and the Community Foundation Supporter is the Rose Community Foundation.

² For the Youth Success Summit Partnership, the Lead Partner is Youth Success Summit and the Fiscal/Legal Agent is YMCA of Akron.

³ For the Chattanooga 2.0 Partnership, the Lead Partner and Fiscal/Legal Agent is Chattanooga 2.0.

⁴ For the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet Partnership, the Lead Partner is Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet and the Community Foundation Supporter is Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley.

⁵ For the Bright Futures Partnership, the Lead Partner and Fiscal/Legal Agent is Hartnell College Foundation.

⁶ For the Promise Partnership Utah, the Lead Partner and Fiscal/Legal Agent is Promise Partnership Utah.

⁷ For the Wayne County Partnership, the Lead Partner is Sodus School District, and the Fiscal/Legal Agent is Finger Lakes Community Action.

About The Wallace Foundation

Wallace is an independent, nonpartisan research foundation, with a mission to help all communities build a more vibrant and just future by fostering advances in the arts, education leadership, and youth development. We collaborate with grantees and research partners to design and test innovative approaches to address pressing problems in the fields we serve. The evidence-based insights we share—searchable online and free of charge—support policymakers and practitioners in their efforts to improve outcomes, enhance community vitality, and help all people reach their full potential.