Young people searching for work can often get stuck because they lack a powerful network of adults to advise them and connect them with ideas and opportunities. A major new national campaign that launched this week aims to help young people make those connections.
Led by the , together more than 450 organizations across the country that work in education, business, philanthropy, and youth development. The idea is that they鈥檇 all contribute to a brain trust to help young adults develop the skills, connections, and support to find鈥攁nd succeed in鈥攋obs.
The aim of the initiative is to land jobs for at least 95 percent of young people ages 16 to 24 who are actively seeking work by the year 2030.
鈥淔or full employment to happen, it has to be a collective effort across all sectors,鈥� said Nathaniel Cole, who is leading the YES Project for America鈥檚 Promise Alliance.
The campaign rests on a three-part idea: In order to succeed, young people need to be ready, connected, and supported. The moving parts of the initiative fall into those three areas, although some are more fully developed than others at this early stage.
LinkedIn will play a key role by supplying a platform on which adults can express interest in helping young people who are looking for work. It鈥檚 already running a , which encourages adults to help other adults outside their own networks. But for the new campaign, LinkedIn has added a #PledgeYES program, which will encourage adults to raise their hands in cyberspace to volunteer to help a young person.
That help could be something simple, like offering introductions to potential job connections, or it could be a little more involved: making yourself available to help young people draft resumes or cover letters, or offering ongoing mentoring.
To get involved, people who have LinkedIn profiles post a comment with #PledgeYES. LinkedIn then conveys that information to the YES Project. That, in turn, triggers a reach-out email that offers the volunteer some concrete steps they can take to contact organizations in their community鈥攖he YES Project鈥檚 national partners鈥攖hat are helping young people with services like job training or internship placement, Cole said.
鈥淭here are lots of ways to support young people, and they don鈥檛 all involve being a mentor, or meeting one-on-one,鈥� said Cole. 鈥淚f you just simply open up your network and make connections, it will enhance the network of a young person. Sometimes that quick touch is good enough, and equally important.鈥�
The YES Project鈥檚 own website will also facilitate those kinds of connections between adults and young people. When they sign up, adults will get an email from the initiative listing a half-dozen ways they can help, and organizations in their region they can contact to find ways to support young adults in building their work skills, finding a job, and thriving once they鈥檙e employed. The campaign will check in from time to time to see how volunteers are doing, and if they鈥檝e made the connections they need to help younger people, Cole said.
Another part of the initiative focuses on learning lessons from four communities that are doing good work with young people who aren鈥檛 in school or working. They鈥檝e given grants to these projects to support their work and learn more about it, so they can translate those lessons into expanded opportunities for young people. Those projects鈥攑art of the Aspen Institute鈥檚 Opportunity Youth Forum鈥攁re the Ancestral Lands Hopi Program on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona; Capital Workforce Partners in Hartford, Conn.; Thrive Chicago, and Austin鈥檚 Opportunity Youth Collaborative in Texas.