We are approaching the halfway mark in the Philadelphia Task Force on Sports-Based Youth Development- a citywide public/private initiative with its members working to ensure that  all  of Philadelphia's children have access to safe, quality sports and physical activity activities that are rooted in positive youth development.

At the most recent meeting of the Task Force Jenny Bogoni, Executive Director of the Read by 4th Campaign at Free Library of Philadelphia, joined us to share wisdom she has found through her career in Philadelphia non-profits. In her experience, a backbone organization is crucial to collective impact. While partners in collective impact have missions of their own, a backbone organization is neutral and can take hard hits when necessary. A backbone organization also provides the platform for all partners to authentically have a voice in your collective impact initiative. Such insight from Jenny is why PYSC is proud to serve as the backbone to the Task Force on Sports-Based Youth Development.

In January members of the Task Force met for focused work group meetings in the areas of Access , Communications , Measurement and Quality , and Sustainable Funding . The recommendations from these work groups will be shared with the full Task Force next month. Email us with questions about the Task Force's progress.