Overview

For over 35 years, STRIVE has offered programs to foster career and personal development for its participants. The STRIVE network provides services in 12 cities throughout the country and has served over 75,000 participants who face significant barriers to employment, including young people not in school or work, people living in poverty with unstable housing and substance use disorders, and people who were recently incarcerated. STRIVE aims to place people on career paths toward high-demand, middle-skilled jobs through its two main programs: Career Path, which provides training for careers in sectors of the local economy with high demand along with job-placement services, and Fresh Start, which mainly serves young people who have been involved in the justice system and which provides temporary work experiences. In 2023, STRIVE launched an ambitious 10-year growth and impact plan to expand its nationwide programs and services, with a goal of serving 10,000 people per year in 2033, compared with 2,000 currently. This project will help guide its expansion effort.

STRIVE Forward will improve staff members’ abilities to support this growth in program operations by using data to help them improve their performance. It will also make sure programs continue to be implemented well as they expand and lay a foundation for future studies to build evidence about STRIVE. In a previous engagement called STRIVE Connect, MDRC’s Center for Data Insights developed an evaluation road map with STRIVE and used behavioral science and data science to help guide the initial implementation of the Career Path program. As the next logical step in STRIVE’s measurement and evaluation journey, STRIVE Forward will conduct a process study that builds STRIVE’s data capabilities to strengthen STRIVE Career Path and Fresh Start programs.

STRIVE Forward aims to both publish a brief with insights about these two important STRIVE programs and strengthen STRIVE with sustainable data practices and processes that will deepen its strategy, practice, and culture.