Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Collaboration, Data, and Evidence: Lessons from the Planning and Early Implementation of a Partnership-Focused Youth Program

(Public and Non-Profit Management and Finance)

Although the policy world continues to emphasize data, evidence, and collaboration as tools to support ongoing program quality improvement, policymakers and scholars are only beginning to understand the best practices in the implementation of these concepts with nonprofit providers. Effective data gathering, use of evidence, and collaborative program structuring are all significant challenges for practitioners, and the public and private funder community would be well-served to consider how it can best support practitioners in meeting these challenges.

This panel will contribute to the field’s understanding of data, evidence, and collaboration by discussing the implementation of the Youth Opportunity Hubs, which are coalitions of youth-serving nonprofits in New York City providing coordinated, comprehensive services to young people in neighborhoods with disproportionate levels of justice system involvement. The panel will include practitioners, funders, researchers, and intermediaries working on this initiative, in order to provide a full understanding of the Hubs initiative and the lessons it holds for the youth services field specifically, as well as for policy and program implementation more generally.

The first paper provides an overview of the genesis of the Hubs concept through a partnership between the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (DANY) and the City University of New York’s Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG), which manages this initiative on behalf of DANY. The second paper explains the Hubs concept in more detail and discusses lessons from the early implementation of this initiative. This paper also discusses ISLG’s approach to using performance metrics and qualitative data in an iterative process of feedback and continuous improvement with the Hubs. The third paper examines this initiative from the perspective of a nonprofit Hub provider and explores the challenges and opportunities this approach presents for practitioners, as well as how the practitioners involved with the Hubs initiative are perceiving the Hubs’ progress and the use of evidence, data, and collaboration to drive program success.

Taken together, these papers provide a snapshot of how collaboration, data, and evidence are playing a role in program implementation in the Hubs initiative. They also provide a roadmap to further research both on the Hubs directly (a larger process, outcome, and cost evaluation of the initiative is currently underway) and on the implementation of collaborative programs and effective use of data and evidence in continuous program improvement.