(WASHINGTON, June 4, 2012)—Today, the White House Council on Community Solutions released its final report and recommendations for how all Americans – across all sectors – can work together to address key community challenges and create real, systemic change for youth who are out of school and work, and for their communities.

Read the full report.

Established by Executive Order in December 2010, the White House Council for Community Solutions worked to identify innovative cross-sector community initiatives that increased civic participation and helped solve our nation’s most serious challenge. In seeking to learn more about a distinctive group of community collaboratives that achieved significant improvement on local challenges, the Council chose to apply these findings toward creating substantial opportunity for young people who are out of school and work. While these young people are commonly known as “disconnected youth,” the Council identified them as opportunity youth because of the untapped potential they offer and high cost inaction poses for our nation. The Council was chaired by Patricia Stonesifer,vice chair of the Smithsonian Institution and former CEO of IS member, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Council includes Independent Sector President and CEO Diana Aviv and the leaders of five IS member organizations: 

• Jim Canales – President and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation
• Jim Gibbons – President and CEO of Goodwill Industries International
• Judith Rodin – President of the Rockefeller Foundation
• Paul Schmitz – National CEO of Public Allies and IS Board Member
• Jill Schumann – President and CEO of Lutheran Services in America

Other IS members who were vital to the development of this final report are:

• Daniel Cardinali – President of Communities In Schools
• Brian Gallagher – President and CEO of United Way Worldwide
• John Kania – Managing Director of FSG
• Willa Seldon – Partner of The Bridgespan Group

Learn more about the Council.

Independent Sector is a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of 600 charities, foundations, and corporate philanthropy programs, collectively representing tens of thousands of charitable groups in every state across the nation. Its mission is to advance the common good by leading, strengthening, and mobilizing the nonprofit and philanthropic community. Learn more at IndependentSector.org.