The Future

Lessons Learned

In addition to tracking and analyzing student outcomes resulting from participation in the Aspirations Incubator, the evaluation team at Data Innovation Project evaluated the program implementation process over the course of the 6-year pilot project, and identified key lessons learned that could be valuable to share with the youth development field, including:

Relationships are Both a Tool and an Outcome

In the Aspirations Incubator program model, positive relationships function as both the vehicle by which outcomes occur, and an important outcome itself. When students develop and maintain strong and consistent relationships with their program manager and their peers over time, they feel safe. This sense of security is a necessary precondition for students to open up, feel greater confidence in themselves, and ultimately become active participants in planning their future. The practice of “looping” – where adult and older peer mentors work with a dedicated group of program participants from the start and stay with the group throughout the course of the program experience – allows for deeper and more meaningful relationships to develop over the years. 

Many youth serving organizations focus on getting young people involved in a type of activity or experience - outdoor adventure, non-electronic games, expeditionary learning, or college-readiness. In a relationship-centered model, those activities are just the vehicle through which young people, their mentors, and peers develop an authentic, meaningful, and long-lasting relationship. Honoring this insight requires a theoretical and philosophical restructuring for any organization, program, or funder interested in this type of comprehensive mentoring and youth development. 

Long-Term Engagement Values Depth over Breadth

The AI model is a long-term intervention that follows participants from 7th grade through their graduation or departure from high school. This structure calls for a shift away from the common philanthropic goal of reaching as many people as possible and requires funders and organizations to see the value in having a deeper impact on fewer people.

The most prominent impacts of this model are twofold. Long-term engagement fosters belonging. When compared to their peers across Maine, Cohort 1 reported feeling that they matter to the people in their community at a higher percentage than students in the same grade. This has greater implications for rural Maine students who have disproportionately lower rates of feeling they matter to their communities.

Long-term engagement also sustains aspirations. Cohort 1’s college-going aspirations were high at the end of middle school, dropped substantially by 10th grade, yet returned to the 8th grade level by 12th grade. The AI program helped students feel continuity and support through major transitions including from middle to high school and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Funding a Long-Term Model Can be Sustainable

Although this evaluation did not include a return-on-investment analysis, financial data provided by the RFF did reveal some insights on the cost of funding long-term models. The average annual cost per program was $151,676, which covered all the direct and indirect costs of running six cohorts of 10-20 students at once. Accounting for fluctuations in cohort enrollment, the average annual cost per student was $2,002. 

For comparison, the average cost per child in an afterschool program is $100 a week.[1] In Maine there are about 36 weeks in a school year, making the annual cost approximately $3,600; more than the year-round cost of an AI program. Several site staff and leadership also noted that the model is not particularly expensive and there are opportunities to distill the model further which would in turn reduce costs.

[1] Afterschool Alliance. (2020). America After 3PM: Demand Grows, Opportunity Shrinks. afterschoolalliance.org. https://afterschoolalliance.org/documents/AA3PM-2020/AA3PM-National-Report.pdf