Designed With, Not For: Our '26-'27 Improvement Agenda
This year (2026-27), we’re setting our sights on three things: (1) Strengthening the conditions young people need to thrive, (2) building organizations capacity to keep improving, and (3) strengthening our coordination, within the Network and beyond it.
Throughout all of our priorities, this year’s and past, one thing remains the same: We are co-designing solutions with young people and practitioners, not for them.
Read on to learn more about our commitments for this upcoming year!
At Student Success Network (SSN), we know that real, lasting improvement doesn't happen in isolation. It happens when we center the voices of young people, listen closely to the practitioners doing the daily work, and find new ways to collaborate with one another. That's the spirit behind our Improvement Agenda for the year ahead: a shared roadmap for how we'll work together as a Network to accelerate success for every student.
This is grounded in what we've learned over the past several years, what students and practitioners are telling us right now, and what this particular moment in youth development demands of us.
The Challenges We're Hearing About
Across our Network, three interconnected themes continuously surface:
Young people are navigating an increasingly complex and uncertain postsecondary landscape, with rapid shifts in technology influencing how we learn, connect, and work.
Youth-serving nonprofits are being asked to do more with less capacity and fewer resources.
The systems meant to support youth remain fragmented, making it harder for students to get the coordinated support they need.
We don't think these challenges can be solved separately, and we don't think any one organization can solve them alone. They call for new approaches, deeper collaboration, and a renewed sense of urgency. We believe that tackling them together will make our organizations stronger, improve outcomes for young people, and help build a more connected, resilient youth development field.
With that in mind, here's what we're committing to by summer 2027 ⬇️
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Young people today are preparing for adulthood in the middle of profound change. Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries. Perceptions of the value of a college degree are shifting. Workforce demands are evolving, and new educational priorities - like the Portrait of a Graduate and Career Navigation Roadmap - are redefining what postsecondary planning looks like.
At the same time, recent changes in higher education and workforce access risk widening opportunity gaps that already exist, especially for young people who have historically faced the most barriers. Youth-serving organizations are being asked to adapt fast, all while making sure every young person still has the relationships, experiences, skills, and support they need to navigate what's ahead.
To meet this moment, we'll bring Network members together in Improvement Labs and Communities of Practice to identify, test, and spread promising practices around:
Strengthening college and career planning and pathways
Supporting students' well-being
Adapting to an AI-enabled world through a relationships-first lens
Improving competency-based learning
We'll also make sure these insights don't stay siloed. Through blogs, toolkits, practice guides, and a revamped resource library, we'll share what we learn with our broader Network and external partners.
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Time and again, organizations tell us the same thing: they need practical, hands-on support to collect meaningful data, understand what's actually working, and adapt in real time. Too often, they're asked to prove their impact using metrics that don't reflect the real, messy, human work of youth development. And even organizations with the right tools often lack the dedicated staff time to manage data systems, interpret findings, and turn insight into action.
This year, we're focused on closing that gap:
Launching a Data Support Pilot that connects organizations with fractional, hands-on data support — giving them responsive, embedded help as they strengthen their data practices and improvement capacity, without needing to hire a full-time data role.
Facilitating "Data Pack," a community of practice for the data and evaluation staff who so often work as a team of one.
Running Improvement Skill Workshops - one-off sessions on things like facilitating conversations with data, gathering program feedback beyond the standard survey, and running effective focus groups.
Opening dialogue with funders to build shared understanding of what "evidence" really looks like in youth development work, and the real challenges nonprofits face in collecting and using data.
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Students do better when the adults and systems around them work together. But, too many organizations are still operating in fragmented environments, with few real opportunities to collaborate, learn from each other, or find support - whether that's school staff connecting with CBO staff, or organizations learning from peers doing similar work.
We'll keep building flexible, responsive spaces for connection in our Network, including:
Network Exchange — monthly gatherings where members can share challenges, strategies, and emerging solutions in real time.
The Annual Fall Expo — a conference-style opportunity to connect, learn, and share tools and approaches.
A Member Directory — so organizations can find and connect with each other between formal events.
And we're not stopping at the edges of our own Network. We'll continue convening the Coalition of Youth Development Intermediaries, a "network of networks" designed to reduce duplication, increase coordination, and amplify our collective voice across the field. Together, we’ll work together to:
Unify and elevate the sector's voice, gathering and sharing real-time data and advancing coordinated advocacy with funders, policymakers, and cross-sector partners.
Build organizational capacity, expanding access to tools, training, technical assistance, shared services, and innovative collaboration models to strengthen sustainability and increase effectiveness.
Strengthen community and shared learning, creating trusted spaces for leaders and practitioners to connect and respond to emerging challenges together.
The Thread That Ties It All Together
Underlying every part of this agenda is a commitment we’ve made since our inception: we design with young people and practitioners, not for them. Lasting improvement only happens when the people closest to the work help shape it.
That's why we'll keep investing in structures for member and youth leadership — including our Member Advisory Council and Youth Voice Exchange — and building shared decision-making with youth into our Improvement Labs from the start. Their experiences, ideas, and feedback will keep shaping our priorities, deepening our learning, and keeping our work responsive to what the field actually needs.
We're excited for what this year holds, and even more excited to build it together with our Network. If you're part of our Network, we can't wait to build this together. And if you're not yet, but this work resonates with you, we'd love to hear from you too.
This note was written by our CEO, Lucy Herz, and edited for posting by Senior Communications Manager, Jamiee Nathaniel.
