Benefits and Challenges in Building a Community Youth Development Coalition. REACH Issue Brief Series. Number One

How can the field of youth development move from being an assortment of valuable but often disconnected programs to become a coordinated system or sector with greater policy relevance? One strategy for working toward this goal involves building a community youth development coalition. Successful coalitions can take various forms, but most are marked by shared goals, inclusive membership, community legitimacy and the ability to mobilize community assets and resources to create policy or institutional change. Through funding and technical assistance provided to grantees in seven Sacramento-area communities, REACH sought to create effective community youth development coalitions as part of a broader regional change strategy. This issue brief examines what has been learned about the coalition-building process during the REACH youth development program. The authors first review benefits associated with the coalition development strategy, some realized concretely during REACH and others whose promise became apparent. Then they focus on the types of challenges that must be overcome if these benefits are to be more fully realized. The goal is to inform other funders or communities that wish to create vital, effective coalitions capable of advancing youth development goals. [This paper was written with support from Lisceth Cruz Carrasco, James Fabionar, and Whitney Wilcox.]