In 1999 the Ford Foundation funded 12 organizations and the Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development to engage in a three-year learning collaborative called the Youth Leadership Development Initiative (YLDI). The initiative centered on building the capacity of participating community based organizations and culling lessons about civic activism as a youth development approach. This three-year initiative constitutes an important landmark for the youth development field, in that it directs much needed attention to engaging marginalized youth in community change efforts, and offers the promise of substantially shaping youth policy and practice. Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) was selected, in July 2001, to conduct a multi-level evaluation of YLDI. This executive summary presents an overview of the findings, lessons, and recommendations that are detailed in the main body of our final evaluation report. Our evaluation methods included two rounds of multi-day site visits to each YLDI site to gather interview and observational data from program staff and youth. We also conducted extensive reviews of initiative and program level documents (e.g. program descriptions, annual reports, budget data). Quantitative analysis involved two waves of youth surveys

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