{"id":164,"date":"2017-07-10T05:53:42","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T05:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/2020\/12\/23\/recipe-youth-success\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T10:32:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T05:02:43","slug":"recipe-youth-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/recipe-youth-success\/","title":{"rendered":"The recipe for youth success"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><p><span class=\"capital-letter\">F<\/span>or almost three decades, I have been writing grant proposals aimed at improving youth outcomes in school and beyond. I began with small proposals as a classroom teacher and moved to multimillion dollar proposals as a school district administrator, director of a university consortium, and now president of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.search-institute.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Search Institute<\/a>, a nonprofit organization that studies and works to strengthen youth development and education.<\/p><p>I recently I ran into the program officer who approved one of my first major proposals. As we caught up on each other&rsquo;s lives, he asked, &ldquo;Given all of the grants you have written and the work you have done, what is the most important thing you would tell funders to look for when they review a proposal that involves young people?&rdquo;<\/p><p>As I thought about his question, I realized that my answer has shifted over the years. In the first decade of my career, I would have recommended that funders review proposals for use of &ldquo;best practices&rdquo; and strategies that hold people accountable for using them. During the second decade, I would have said to invest in interventions that showed strong evidence of success and that used approaches such as &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/ssir.org\/articles\/entry\/collective_impact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">collective impact<\/a>&rdquo; and &ldquo;improvement science&rdquo; to scale those interventions.<\/p><div class=\"idron-article-in-content\" style=\"margin-bottom: 15px;\" id=\"idron-4051709465\"><a href=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/what-is-idr-answers\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"What is IDR Answers Page Banner\"><img src=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/What-is-IDR-Answers-Page-Banner-1.png\" alt=\"What is IDR Answers Page Banner\"  srcset=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/What-is-IDR-Answers-Page-Banner-1.png 1250w, https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/What-is-IDR-Answers-Page-Banner-1-300x60.png 300w, https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/What-is-IDR-Answers-Page-Banner-1-1024x205.png 1024w, https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/What-is-IDR-Answers-Page-Banner-1-150x30.png 150w, https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/What-is-IDR-Answers-Page-Banner-1-768x154.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1250px) 100vw, 1250px\" width=\"1250\" height=\"250\"   \/><\/a><\/div><p>Now in my third professional decade, however, I gave a simpler answer: &ldquo;Invest in interventions that emphasize relationships.&rdquo;<\/p><p><em>This is an excerpt from the full article, which can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/ssir.org\/articles\/entry\/the_recipe_for_youth_success\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"idron-troublemakers-placement\" style=\"margin-bottom: 20px;\" id=\"idron-2336005010\"><a href=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"donate banner\"><img src=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Donate-banner-1.jpg\" alt=\"donate banner\"  srcset=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Donate-banner-1.jpg 1250w, https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Donate-banner-1-300x60.jpg 300w, https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Donate-banner-1-1024x205.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Donate-banner-1-150x30.jpg 150w, https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Donate-banner-1-768x154.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1250px) 100vw, 1250px\" width=\"1250\" height=\"250\"   \/><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For almost three decades, I have been writing grant proposals aimed at improving youth outcomes in school and beyond. I began with small proposals as a classroom teacher and moved&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,29],"tags":[3619],"series":[],"meta-filter":[],"schema-filter":[743],"no-display":[],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fundraising-and-communications","category-youth","tag-employability","contributor-stanford-social-innovation-review","states-india","schema-filter-article"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The recipe for youth success | India Development Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Too often both funders and practitioners fail to focus on an indispensable ingredient in youth development: relationships.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"kn_IN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The recipe for youth success\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Too often both funders and practitioners fail to focus on an indispensable ingredient in youth development: relationships.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"India Development Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-07-10T05:53:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-22T05:02:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Crea0513web-copy.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"267\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Devanshi Vaid\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The recipe for youth success | India Development Review","description":"Too often both funders and practitioners fail to focus on an indispensable ingredient in youth development: relationships.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/","og_locale":"kn_IN","og_type":"article","og_title":"The recipe for youth success","og_description":"Too often both funders and practitioners fail to focus on an indispensable ingredient in youth development: relationships.","og_url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/","og_site_name":"India Development Review","article_published_time":"2017-07-10T05:53:42+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-10-22T05:02:43+00:00","og_image":[{"width":400,"height":267,"url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Crea0513web-copy.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Devanshi Vaid","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/"},"author":{"name":"Devanshi Vaid","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#\/schema\/person\/5440619b9bec1184c5774c076c0ca71c"},"headline":"The recipe for youth success","datePublished":"2017-07-10T05:53:42+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-22T05:02:43+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/"},"wordCount":240,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Crea0513web-copy.jpg","keywords":["employability"],"articleSection":["Fundraising &amp; Communications","Youth"],"inLanguage":"kn-IN","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/","name":"The recipe for youth success | India Development Review","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Crea0513web-copy.jpg","datePublished":"2017-07-10T05:53:42+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-22T05:02:43+00:00","description":"Too often both funders and practitioners fail to focus on an indispensable ingredient in youth development: relationships.","inLanguage":"kn-IN","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"kn-IN","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/recipe-youth-success\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Crea0513web-copy.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Crea0513web-copy.jpg","width":400,"height":267,"caption":"young girl and older woman smiling and chatting"},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/","name":"India Development Review","description":"India&#039;s first and largest online journal for leaders in the development community","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"kn-IN"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#organization","name":"India Development Review","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"kn-IN","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/idr-logo-without-tagline-sm.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/idr-logo-without-tagline-sm.webp","width":1,"height":1,"caption":"India Development Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/#\/schema\/person\/5440619b9bec1184c5774c076c0ca71c","name":"Devanshi Vaid","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"kn-IN","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2ff7c808d3539c16c67949df0296e034b2baeb599fa173f683398d23fe4e3690?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2ff7c808d3539c16c67949df0296e034b2baeb599fa173f683398d23fe4e3690?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2ff7c808d3539c16c67949df0296e034b2baeb599fa173f683398d23fe4e3690?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Devanshi Vaid"},"url":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/author\/dvaid\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2224,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/2224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"meta-filter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/meta-filter?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"schema-filter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schema-filter?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"no-display","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/no-display?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}