Helping young people build skills, stability, and the future they envision
A strong start to adulthood can change the course of a young person’s life and the lives of families and communities for generations. The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Youth Initiative invests in young people’s pathways to meaningful work, personal stability, and livelihoods that sustain them. We support young people’s talent, resilience, and ambition, and the organizations, employers, and public partners who help turn that potential into opportunity.
The years from 15 to 26 are full of possibility. It’s when young people step into big transitions: finishing school, starting a first job, finding a place to call their own, and caring for their wellbeing. With the right support at this stage — including paid work experience, one of the strongest foundations for a young person’s future — those transitions can help launch young people toward long-term stability and economic mobility.
Potential Meets Barriers: Young people bring big plans for the future into adulthood. Too often, barriers such as the cost of housing, unreliable transportation, or few connections to careers with pathways to economic mobility stand between that potential and a thriving, secure life. Stability and income build on each other: a steady place to live and support for wellbeing make it possible to learn and work, and a job with room to grow makes lasting stability possible.
A Critical Window of Possibility: Adolescence is when confidence, skills, and networks take root. For young people without a strong web of support, a setback during these years can follow them for a long time. The right support at the right moment helps young people keep moving forward and turns early momentum into lasting stability and opportunity.
A Rapidly Evolving Economy: As the economy and technology change quickly, young people need pathways that connect to where good livelihoods are growing, and where employers are ready to work with them, so they can build careers that are resilient, flexible and lasting.
Key Geographies: We’re investing in young people across Atlanta, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and New Orleans—dynamic cities with diverse economies and significant needs. These are places where young people’s energy and creativity are shaping their futures and where our partnerships with community organizations, employers, and public leaders run deep.
Create employment and educational opportunities for youth facing systemic barriers, especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), women, LGBTQI+ individuals, and young parents.
Enrich skills and workforce training, including comprehensive wrap-around supports, to promote job placement.
Raise awareness of the positive impact that comprehensive support services, like childcare and public transportation, have on youth, employers and communities.
Promote the valuable contributions of young adults as employees and entrepreneurs.
Incentivize employers to adopt fair hiring practices, build inclusive workplaces and create more positions for youth.
Strengthen advocacy and global coalitions for policy change.
Promote positive narratives about youth, especially young people of color, to shift negative perceptions.
Collect and share data for informed policymaking and funding decisions regarding Opportunity Youth.
Amplify youth voices to help reform narratives, shape youth-centered policies and strategies, and enable self-advocacy.
Between 2021 and 2025, our Foster Youth, Opportunity Youth, and Homelessness initiatives, and the dedicated grantee partners who carried that work, taught us a great deal about what helps young people step into good jobs and keep them:
Our goal is that by 2031:
