OY Storytelling Project

Expanding opportunities for young people in New Orleans: evolution and impact

Decades of coordination, collaboration, and community-driven change. This is how a city came together to expand opportunities for young people and what that work continues to build. From a rallying call in 2011 to wins that are still growing, this is where it all began.

Our story

A story of coordination, collaboration, and community-driven change since 2011.

In December 2010, the White House Council for Community Solutions identified 6.7 million young people across the country who were out of school and out of work — a population they called Opportunity Youth. The national spotlight prompted local organizations in New Orleans to look at their own data.

What they found made the need clear. Significant numbers of young people across the city were disconnected from school, work, and opportunity, and the gaps fell disproportionately on Black youth.

Those numbers set something in motion. What followed was years of coordinated efforts — funders, organizations, and city leadership aligning around a shared goal — that over time grew into something more: an integrated system of data, programs, policy, and youth voice working together to change outcomes for young people in New Orleans. This is that story.

6,820
Opportunity youth in New Orleans (2016)
Since 2011
Years of strategic effort
200+
Youth-serving orgs involved

Timeline

From coordination to integration

Explore the two eras that shaped Opportunity Youth work in New Orleans.

2011–2019: A rallying call for better outcomes

New Orleans youth-serving organizations came together around a shared mission, connecting young people to education, employment, and opportunity. Backed by national funders and local champions, this era laid the groundwork for collective impact.

2011
YouthShift NOLA launched
$500K
Aspen OYIF seed funding
~500
Youth served (Opportunity Works)
31
Orgs in YPQI pilot

What the data showed: A 2013 Data Center report found that 52% of Black boys and young men of color in New Orleans were out of the labor force and unemployed. National funders — Baptist Community Ministries, JPMorgan Chase, the Aspen Institute's Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund, and the WK Kellogg Foundation — responded directly, anchoring the early ecosystem.

2020–2025: Making big bets, delivering key wins

The ecosystem evolved from coordination to integration — building shared data systems, scaling program quality, advancing policy, and centering youth voice and narrative change as core strategies.

46
Partners in YPQI
40K
Youth served annually
$7.38M
SNAP E&T funding
10
Common metrics

Policy wins: Youth Master Plan (10-year roadmap), Opportunity Pass ($2.5M in ARPA funding), Senate Resolution 47 (Louisiana OY Task Force), and the SNAP Employment & Training expansion.

Go deeper on the data, the milestones, and the people behind this work. What you see here is just a snapshot of the full story. Download the complete presentation to explore the details behind decades of Opportunity Youth work in New Orleans.

Download the Full Story →