The White House Council for Community Solutions: Community Solutions for Opportunity Youth

The White House Council for Community Solutions was created to engage a diverse group of prominent cross-sector leaders to connect, convene and catalyze the best resources of the public, private, non-profit and philanthropic sectors in communities across the country, Identify and highlight solutions that work, identify key attributes of effective cross-sector solutions from institutions working together on community problems, and catalyze resources to support effective community-based solutions. Members of the Council include musician and philathropist Jon Bon Jovi, Michelle Obama as honorary chair, and John Bridgeland, CEO of Civic Enterprises.

Across America, individuals and community groups are finding innovative solutions to address local problems and encourage civic participation. In learning about these community-led initiatives, the Council focuses on supporting young people who are not connected with education and employment.  While these young people are commonly referred to as "disconnected youth", the Council identified them as opportunity youth because of the untapped potential they offer and high cost that inaction poses for our nation.

The Council's work deeply informed the SparkOpportunity Challenge, SparkAction's 2012 online contest calling for youth to submit their solutions to help their peers back onto pathways to training, jobs, and education.

In this June 2012 report (PDF) listing community solutions for opportunity youth, the Council calls for a Presidential Youth Council to further inform decision makers about opportunity youth as well as working to drive cross-sector community collaborations, create shared national responsibility and accountability, and build more robust on-ramps for employment.