youth-development
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Debbie Allen Built a Dance School Where Talent Doesn’t Have to Arrive With Tuition
The academy’s cleverest move was not choosing between rigor and access. It built a serious training pipeline, then used scholarships, outreach and a gifted warehouse to widen the door.
Friday Night Live puts teenagers in charge of the prevention campaign
In California, students audit shops, study traffic and mentor younger peers. Friday Night Live has spent four decades turning youth prevention into work young people can own.
Latino Commission makes room for recovery in your own language
Built by people in recovery, this California nonprofit pairs addiction treatment with Spanish-speaking staff, family support and cultural tradition. Its public contracts reveal the cost of preparing care before anyone walks through the door.
The Y Dropped the Map and Kept the Compass
One of North America's largest Ys traded a geographic name for a directional one - and kept doing the unglamorous work of raising kids, teaching swimming, and holding neighborhoods together.
Young Life Built a Global Youth Network by Showing Up Before Preaching
The 85-year-old ministry does not wait for teenagers to walk into church. It trains adults to enter their world - at games, on campuses, in clubs and at camp - and turns patient friendship into a worldwide operating model.
Togetherhood
Togetherhood is a New York-based enrichment platform that connects schools, community organizations and families with vetted, independent instructors who teach courses beyond the standard curriculum - cooking, coding, theater, martial arts, chess, music and more. Born from pandemic-era learning pods, the company removes the operational headache of vendor management, vetting, scheduling and payments so schools get extraordinary programming and passionate teaching artists get steady, well-supported work.
Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins (Charles M. Collins) is a Harvard-trained lawyer, MIT city planner, and former real estate developer who spent nearly two decades as President and CEO of YMCA of Greater San Francisco, transforming it into an organization serving more than 42,000 children annually across three Bay Area counties. Born in San Francisco's Fillmore district in 1947 and raised as one of the first Black families in Mill Valley, he brings a lifetime of crossing boundaries to his work at the intersection of community, equity, and opportunity. Now a Presidential Fellow at USF's Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service, he continues to shape the region's civic life.
Jim Hori
Jim Hori is President and CEO of the YMCA of Silicon Valley, one of the largest YMCA associations in the United States. He took the helm in June 2022 after 22 years at Silicon Valley Bank, where he served as Managing Director and led the SVB Foundation for 19 years. A Fresno native and Fresno State graduate, Hori spent more than a decade on the YMCA board before being asked to run the place.
John T. Ehrbar
John T. Ehrbar is a career YMCA leader who, starting January 26, 2026, takes the helm as President and CEO of the YMCA of Silicon Valley after six years running YMCA Buffalo Niagara. He has spent over two decades inside the Y movement, climbing from a high school Leaders Club kid in northeast Ohio to running an 80-million-dollar nonprofit serving 2,300 staff across the Bay Area.