ATLANTA, GA – Today, Stand Together Foundation and America’s Promise Alliance (APA) announced a new partnership to redefine success for youth-serving nonprofits – by placing young people’s voices at the center of social impact. The initiative kicks off with an inaugural cohort of 13 local nonprofits that will receive training, funding, and support to implement youth-centered feedback tools. This investment builds on a broader set of commitments from Stand Together in Atlanta, including separate collaborations with State Farm Arena, the Atlanta Hawks, and Café Momentum to advance bottom-up, community-driven solutions.
Through this initiative, APA – the nation’s largest coalition of youth-focused nonprofits – will launch its first place-based cohort of nonprofit partners in Atlanta, bringing together local organizations to collaborate and deepen their impact in the city. As part of the program, APA will introduce Stand Together Foundation’s Customer First Measurement (CFM) approach, a method that helps nonprofits gather and act on feedback directly from the young people and families they serve. Participating organizations will receive hands-on support to use this feedback to improve their programs and drive better results.
" In many cases, nonprofit success is measured either by tracking outputs like enrollment and participation, or through large-scale evaluations focused on long-term outcomes,” said Mike O’Brien, CEO of America’s Promise Alliance. "But what’s often missing is ongoing, direct feedback from young people themselves – their experiences, perspectives, and whether they felt real change in their lives. This partnership with Stand Together Foundation ensures youth are front and center in defining success and shaping the solutions that serve them."
"Now more than ever, nonprofits need to clearly demonstrate their impact,” said APA's Atlanta Executive Director Jasmine Burton. “At the same time, organizations are stretched thin, so the tools they use need to be practical. That’s why we’re designing our capacity-building support with a human-centered lens – ensuring organizations can listen and respond to community needs and pain points in ways that work best for them, while also communicating their value and impact to donors and policymakers.”
The initiative brings together a unique combination of practitioners, funders, and community members all working toward a common goal to elevate a critical yet often overlooked source of information – the voices of young people. As a result, the Atlanta cohort aims to serve as a launching pad and national model for aligning funding with community-defined impact, with early interest from funders such as The Coca-Cola Foundation, Georgia Power Foundation, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation signaling strong momentum behind this shift.
"Supporting impactful, community-centered programs that elevate the voices of those most affected and fosters collaboration between funders and local communities underscores our dedication to empowering communities and building pathways to opportunity for everyone," said Yglesias Hollins of The Coca-Cola Foundation.
"Philanthropy works best when funders create space for nonprofits to listen to the communities they serve," said Nate Mandel, Stand Together Foundation’s Director of Customer Measurement. "Through this partnership with America's Promise Alliance, we’re seeing that when organizations are empowered to truly prioritize community feedback, they respond with meaningful innovations based on what they’ve heard. This approach builds trust and leads to better outcomes for the people we aim to serve."
Organizations participating in the new program are eager for better data, practical tools, and a strong peer community to help deepen their impact. APA’s skill-building curriculum, called “Insights 2 Impact”, will provide individualized support, expert guidance, and a collaborative space for nonprofit leaders to exchange learning with peers. As participants identify meaningful areas for inquiry, deploy surveys, and uncover insights, they will collaborate with fellow nonprofit leaders to make programmatic improvements that strengthen the impact of social services across the Atlanta community.
Dr. Cheryl Watson-Harris, President and Executive Director of Achieve Atlanta – a participating nonprofit helping students achieve post-secondary success – shared her excitement: “Achieve Atlanta is proud to join America’s Promise Alliance as part of the Partner Cities Initiative. This strategic partnership strengthens our work by connecting us to a national network of peers and providing timely insights that deepen our local impact. Through this curated community, we are not only deepening the impact of our individual organization, but we’re also contributing to broader efforts to elevate student voice and advance opportunities for young people across the country."
Marsha Francis, PhD, Executive Director at STE(A)M Truck, which provides mobile STEAM education to youth across Atlanta, said, “Within weeks of joining APA, we received resources and support to finally launch our STE(A)M Truck's Youth Advisory Council, which has yielded 50 incredible applicants. We look forward to enhancing our STEM programming with the unique and important feedback from these brilliant young minds.”
The new initiative represents an important shift in the social sector toward prioritizing bottom-up approaches that empower individuals to take the lead in solving challenges that directly affect them. The momentum behind this work positions Atlanta to become a national model for aligning funding with nonprofit practice to transform how social issues are addressed and solutions are shaped within communities.
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About Stand Together Foundation
Stand Together Foundation is dedicated to empowering individuals to reach their full potential through community-driven change. We are building a movement of social entrepreneurs who believe in people, work with individuals closest to the problem, and unite with anyone to do right. Through innovations that inspire Americans to help each other, we are building stronger, safer communities where all people can learn, contribute, and live lives of meaning. Learn more at StandTogetherFoundation.org.
About America’s Promise Alliance
Since its founding more than 25 years ago, America’s Promise Alliance has mobilized the youth-serving sector to achieve progress around large, shared goals, including high school graduation, national service, and youth employment. A national community of more than 150 nonprofits that collectively reach over 31 million young people annually, the Alliance offers leadership development, knowledge sharing, and capacity building programming alongside national research and multi-organization collaboration initiatives that make it possible to tackle challenges that are too large or too complex for any one organization to address on its own. Learn more at www.americaspromise.org.
Media Contact:
Victoria Danner
Stand Together
