Spotlight on The Aspen Institute

4.08.2019 — LISC StoriesFunder in the Spotlight

Rural LISC is thrilled to recognize The Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions for their support of Rural LISC’s Greenville Opportunity Youth (GO Youth) Initiative over the last four years.

Opportunity Youth are young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market. In the United States, Opportunity Youth total almost six million individuals in urban, rural and tribal communities. A tremendous and invaluable opportunity is lost in local communities when these young people do not complete their education, receive soft skills and job training and transition to living wage employment and careers that lead to fulfilling, satisfying lives for themselves and their families.

The Forum for Community Solutions plays an integral role in the national Opportunity Youth movement, including functions related to coordinating funding, producing research and learning, providing technical assistance and other activities.

The Opportunity Youth Forum was launched in 2012 to leverage the growing momentum of the Opportunity Youth movement coming out of the White House Council on Community Solutions. The White House Council had called for innovative, place-based, collaborative solutions to reconnect the 6.7 million Opportunity Youth in the United States to paths of self-actualization and social cohesion. Today, the Opportunity Youth Forum is a robust network that spans the United States and includes dozens of communities in diverse urban, rural and tribal places. An independent evaluation of the Opportunity Youth Forum has found that these communities have made significant progress since 2012, and many are seeing concrete improvements in local systems impacting Opportunity Youth.

The Opportunity Youth Forum network convenes twice each year, engaging site leads, youth leaders, funders, thought partners, and national leaders at a spring convening hosted by a member community that promotes learning in a local context and a fall convening at the Aspen Institute campus in Colorado focusing on national innovations and movement-building efforts. (Photo Credit: The Aspen Institute)

An outgrowth of the Opportunity Youth Forum, the GO (Greenville Opportunity) Youth Initiative is a collaboration of local, regional and statewide partners headquartered in the city of Greenville, Miss., in the heart of the Mississippi Delta region. Several community-based organizations, including Rural LISC partner Washington County Economic Alliance (WCEA), are active members of the collaborative. With Aspen’s support, they worked together to lift Opportunity Youth out of poverty through education, coaching, vocational training and career placement.

“Aspen’s support was instrumental in catalyzing our GO Youth Initiative.”

— Suzanne Anarde, LISC Vice President and Rural LISC Director

“Aspen’s support was instrumental in catalyzing our GO Youth Initiative,” said LISC Vice President and Rural LISC Director Suzanne Anarde. “Persistent poverty is high in the Delta, but there are so many opportunities to get Opportunity Youth working in living wage jobs – allowing them to better support their families and contribute to the local economy. We are proud of GO Youth’s achievements over the years, and we are especially grateful to have had such valued partners who serve Opportunity Youth directly.”

Over the last four years, Rural LISC's investment in the GO Youth Initiative has helped it to serve more than 350 youth, breaking the cycle of poverty through education, vocational training and career placement.