News Story

Ready by 21 is a set of innovative strategies developed by the Forum for Youth Investment that helps communities improve the odds that all children and youth will be ready for college, work and life. Ready by 21 provides clear standards to achieve collective impact, tools and solutions to help leaders make progress, and ways to measure and track success along the way.

Healthy behavior, staying in school, problem-solving skills - these are among the outcomes we all want to see in our young people. It is always encouraging to be able to point to a new mentoring initiative, a great afterschool program or a really innovative school, but to achieve community- and state-wide impact, you need to do something bigger.

Program leaders often face a tension between instilling accountability strategies to encourage rigorous practice, while also fostering an atmosphere where creativity and risk-taking thrive.

Could Social Impact Bonds - where private investors fund social programs up front and get returns based on their success - change how we fund youth and family services in the United States? The White House recently partnered with the Nonprofit Finance Fund to discuss the possibilities.

Anyone who collaborates with schools on out-of-school time programs should watch what happens in Washington with Waiver 11.

To make good decisions, leaders need complete data from all the settings and systems where young people spend their time. They need information about youths’ physical and mental health, afterschool activities, employment and family structure, and more. Better data helps leaders use their resources more efficiently and effectively.

Washington is abuzz with the Senate HELP Committee's new education bill, but passage remains uncertain. In the meantime, organizations keep their focus on waivers to the current No Child Left Behind law.

"I knew something was up last winter when I received more than 20 e-mails in a span of 48 hours asking if I had read this new article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review."