Support to systematize and scale Youth Lead KC’s greatest strength – trusted relationships with students

Youth Lead KC has helped Kansas City students envision and take the next step after high school since 1993. Today, more than 80% of participating students enroll in college or another post-secondary pathway. 

Marnie Morgan, executive director at Youth Lead KC, said a key driver of the organization’s success is the strong relationships staff members develop with students during high school. They are seen as trusted mentors and part of their support system – many stayed in touch after graduation.

“They reached out when they encountered challenges on things like navigating financial aid, understanding college systems, making academic decisions, or simply figuring out who to turn to when something wasn’t going as planned,” Morgan said.

The continued, informal support for students beyond high school begged the question: What was the impact of those continued relationships?

“We began looking more closely at our National Student Clearinghouse data and comparing outcomes for alumni who remained connected to Youth Lead KC with those with whom we had lost contact,” Morgan said. “We saw a notable difference in college completion rates.”

That finding was an important turning point. “We had built trusted relationships that could potentially help students persist and complete, but we did not yet have the organizational capacity, systems, data infrastructure, or defined model to intentionally extend that support beyond high school,” Morgan said. “That became the capacity gap we wanted to address.”

Capacity and connection for college persistence

Youth Lead KC’s application for a Kauffman Foundation Capacity Building grant was two-fold: A clear idea of the organizational strength needed to track engagement with students, partners, and funders over time and how those systems would support an intentional development strategy to drive expanded impact for their mission and their students.

Capacity Building funding was awarded in 2024 to catalyze Youth Lead KC’s information technology planning and staffing, and from there, build data systems and program enhancements to improve college persistence and completion.

Stronger data systems are helping us move from having pieces of information about students, alumni, and supporters in different places to having information we can actually use to make decisions, strengthen relationships, and provide more individualized support.

— Marnie Morgan
Executive Director, Youth Lead KC

Initial work focused on developing tools, curriculum, and support strategies informed by data and experiences from previous Youth Lead KC alumni. This resulted in a new intake process to identify potential risk factors and greater understanding of the support students need as they transition from high school to post-secondary education. Youth Lead KC launched the process with students this summer.

“That process revealed some significant trends and, more importantly, gave our staff the opportunity to intervene,” Morgan said. “We identified barriers related to financial gaps, logistics, navigating college systems, and help-seeking behaviors, and were able to work alongside students to address many of those issues before the semester even began.”

Among those who completed the intake process this summer, every student remained on track to begin their intended post-secondary pathway.

“The capacity-building investment is allowing us to move from informal, reactive support of alumni to a more intentional and proactive model – one that helps us identify risk earlier, respond more effectively, and stay connected to students during the moments when they are most likely to need support,” Morgan said.

The goal is not to eliminate every obstacle a student will encounter, but to maintain the capacity for connection and document challenges – and how Youth Lead KC responds to those challenges – to learn, identify patterns, and continually improve programming. They aim to systemize Youth Lead KC’s highly relational approach at scale.

“That allows us to preserve what has always been one of Youth Lead KC’s greatest strengths,” Morgan said, “the trusted relationship between a student and a caring adult, while building the infrastructure to extend that support to significantly more students.”