JA Worldwide

Engaging Youth in Shaping the Programs that Serve Them

“The project enabled us to obtain qualitative impact measures, look at trends and themes from youth as related to our strategic plan, and create a repository of youth voices and impact stories.”

— Sarah Rapp, Director of Alumni and People Engagement, JA Worldwide

Challenge

JA Worldwide wanted to bring the perspectives of the young people they serve into their strategic planning process. As a global youth-serving organization spanning dozens of countries, they needed a way to gather many different experiences and make sense of them at scale, as usable insights.

Solution

JA partnered with Cortico to launch Youth Voices, a youth-led conversation effort. For the first time in JA’s history, students and alumni shared their experiences through recorded small-group conversations facilitated by JA Youth Advisors and alumni. Those conversations were uploaded to Cortico’s platform, and a sensemaking team made up of JA leaders, Cortico staff, and MIT CCC researchers highlighted excerpts and organized them into themes. In Year 2, additional JA alumni joined the sensemaking process and more conversations were added to deepen the record.

A public conversation portal was created as a central place to explore the stories, themes, and highlights from these discussions.

Results

Youth Voices surfaced firsthand experiences from more than 200 JA students and alumni across 64 countries, creating an ongoing, global repository of youth insight. The themes and stories informed JA Worldwide’s strategic planning and gave JA a sustained, repeatable way to listen to young people over time. Since the initial findings were shared in June 2022, JA and Cortico have continued to add new alumni conversations to keep the channel active and growing.