Creating entrepreneurship pathways for opportunity youth: lessons from Del Norte and Tribal Lands, California

In 2017, the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions launched the Youth Entrepreneurship Fund (YEF), which explores entrepreneurship as a pathway to economic self-determination and wealth-building for opportunity youth. Del Norte County and Tribal Lands, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and San Francisco, California received YEF grants. All three communities seek to promote racial and economic equity by seeking to ensure that youth who are experiencing the most significant barriers to reconnection - youth of color, Native American youth, and rural youth, as well as youth who are low income and reside in public housing - are provided with a full range of opportunities to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and skills that can help them thrive in today's economy, as well as access to tools and resources needed by aspiring entrepreneurs.

The Aspen Forum partnered with the Aspen Institute's Business Ownership Initiative to co-lead a community of practice among the YEF grantees and document the learnings from this work. This case study explores the local context and history of the opportunity youth efforts and how entrepreneurship fits into the larger body of community-building work in Del Norte. The local collaborative has developed a shared vision to improve community health and a focus on locally led economic development that responds to community workforce needs, engaged young leaders and community organizers to identify and solve local challenges, and implemented the use of human-centered design principles as a strategy to bring community together around solving challenges and envisioning a better Del Norte.

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