Be The Change, Inc. and The Forum for Youth Investment Announce New Operating Structure for Opportunity Nation
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Be The Change, Inc. and The Forum for Youth Investment Announce New Operating Structure for Opportunity Nation
Move Brings Together Like-Minded Programs to Expand Opportunity for All
WASHINGTON, DC, May 16, 2018 – Be The Change, Inc. and The Forum for Youth Investment announced today that Opportunity Nation will be housed with the Forum for Youth Investment (the Forum), a leader in helping prepare young people for college, work and life.
Opportunity Nation is a bipartisan, national campaign dedicated to ensuring that everyone–no matter where they were born–has the opportunity to succeed. It joins the Forum’s other related policy initiatives, such as the Opportunity Youth Network, the Children’s Cabinet Network, the Children’s Funding Project, and SparkAction, to strengthen the collective impact of improving opportunity outcomes.
“We are thrilled to welcome Opportunity Nation to the Forum for Youth Investment family,” said Karen Pittman, Forum Co-Founder, President and CEO. “The Opportunity Nation brand, Coalition, policy and communications expertise along with its Opportunity Index have been integral in raising awareness and deepening the conversation around opportunity in this country. The Forum looks forward to having all of our combined resources leveraged to further elevate the impact we can make.”
Alan Khazei, Founder and CEO of Be The Change, Inc., said, “For more than 10 years, Be The Change has incubated social campaigns of critical importance to our country. It makes sense to unite like-minded organizations so that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. In 2016, Be The Change merged its first campaign, ServiceNation, into Service Year Alliance. Today, we are thrilled to bring Opportunity Nation to the outstanding team and resources at the Forum for Youth Investment for greater leverage and impact.”
Opportunity Nation’s signature programs will continue, including the annual Opportunity Index, and its work with their 350-member Coalition. A new Metro-Level Opportunity Index will be released this year. The Forum is recommitting to the Opportunity Index’s breadth of data across all stages of life, expanding beyond Opportunity Nation’s recent focus on Opportunity Youth to emphasize the critical period from birth through young adulthood.
Two former Opportunity Nation staff members René Gornall, Opportunity Nation’s former Director of Development, and Stacy Heit, former Director of Communications and Events have been the thought leaders behind Opportunity Nation’s strategic planning process and are on the transition team working on integrating Opportunity Nation’s work into that of the Forum.
About Forum for Youth Investment:
The Forum works with state and local leaders and leadership groups to fundamentally change the way they do business for young people. This change is created through field-tested strategies that strengthen national state and local partnerships that focus on young people, expand and improve learning opportunities for all youth, and align and advance policies and resources to make them more effective.
Opportunity Nation is a bipartisan, national coalition of more than 300 businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions and community leaders working to expand economic mobility. Opportunity Nation seeks to advance opportunity by amplifying the work of its Coalition members, advocating policy and private sector actions, and releasing the annual Opportunity Index.
Contact: Stacy Heit
email: stacy@opportunitynation.org
Cell phone: 703.209.4710
Opportunity Nation
Opportunity Nation is a bipartisan, national campaign comprised of more than 350 cross-sector organizations working together to expand economic mobility and close the opportunity gap in America. Opportunity Nation envisions the United States as a nation where everyone – regardless of where they were born – has equal access to opportunity, economic mobility, and success at all stages of life.
