YouthLink is excited to announce that they have been awarded a grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. This $50,000 grant will be used to fund a return on investment study. This study will evaluate the Youth Opportunity Center’s (YOC) model of service delivery.

“YouthLink is incredibly honored to receive this grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation,” said Dr. Heather Huseby, Executive Director of YouthLink. “Funding from such a well-respected national foundation underscores what is happening here at the Youth Opportunity Center and the possibilities of this framework of service delivery to have an impact in the lives of young people experiencing homelessness. The grant will enable us to provide a tool to evaluate the YOC model, and also to share our findings with the youth community both locally and nationally.”

With the grant money, the YOC plans to activate Phase III of their economic return on investment evaluation study. Phase I of the effort defined the overall framework and scope of the comprehensive study. Phase II, funded by Otto Bremer Foundation and currently underway, will result in a unified system of data collection and analysis to measure and evaluate the intervention model. The concluding phase, Phase III, will be to produce the first ROI calculation, written study and communication materials, as well as establish an ongoing framework for collecting data to support future ROI analysis.

The primary goal of this study is to provide an ongoing tool to evaluate the YOC model, with consideration given to selecting data sources that are replicable nationally. It is anticipated the YOC model will address not only youth homelessness, but also the societal causes that lead to it.