Youth unemployment hit record highs this year. The work you and your organization do to address this crisis has never been more important. At the same time, it is harder than ever to secure the funders and supporters you need to do your work.
We are inviting your organization to join a unique study that is setting new standards for social impact measurement in Canada’s youth employment sector. With over 32,000 participants already opted in, this study is one of the largest of its kind in Canada. Longitudinal studies are rare in the youth sector, yet uniquely powerful.
By joining this study, your organization can:
Learn about your program’s long-term impacts on your young participants’ employment and wellbeing.
Improve the impact of your programs by accessing practical data-driven insights.
Strength your organization’s funding applications and reports with powerful longitudinal data.
All your organization needs to do to be part of this study is:
- Add short opt-in text and link to your existing program or event evaluation surveys, inviting young participants to join the study.
- Get as many young people as possible to fill out your existing program or event evaluation surveys! We know this is harder than it sounds, we can help you do this by sharing leading practices and advice.
- Complete a short survey to help us understand your organization’s programming.
- Share program or event survey data from the young participants who opt-in to the study with us. We will let you know who these young people are and take care of getting their permission for you to share this data with us.
We will take care of the rest:
- Surveying your participants who opt-in once a year for three years and conducting interviews with a select group of participants after year three.
- Sending each participant who completes a survey or interview a cash incentive ($10 per survey, $25 per interview).
- Staying in touch with young participants in between surveys to maintain engagement.
- Securely storing and managing all participant data in compliance with the University of Waterloo’s Office of Research Ethics Board.
- Sharing the raw data from your participants’ study responses with you on a yearly basis.
- Sharing quarterly insights from the aggregate study data (i.e. combined data from all the organizations who take part in the study) with you and your team so that you can use this evidence to improve your programs.
- Offering your organization opportunities to ask study participants survey questions that matter to your organization and your funders.
- Offering your team access to leading practices in evaluation and impact measurement on an ongoing basis through one-on-one advice calls as requested and exclusive webinars.
What we will never do:
- We will never share your participant data with anyone outside of a select few members of the Youth & Innovation Project team at University of Waterloo who are directly involved in this study.
- We will never share just your organization’s data or the findings from that data with anyone but your organization. We will only share data that is in aggregate form with the public (i.e. combined data from all the organizations who take part in the study).
This study has ethics approval from the University of Waterloo’s Office of Research Ethics Board and as such the gathering and storage of all data and participant information is managed under strict privacy and confidentiality guidelines.
Interested in joining this unique study? Contact us at youthimpact@uwaterloo.ca
We can also offer the following for an additional cost:
- Prepare a post-program evaluation for your organization (including incorporating any funder requirements) as well as analyze data and write a report summarizing that data.
- Analyze your organization’s longitudinal study data and write a report for use by your organization exclusively using qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (survey) data to summarize your unique impact.
- Carry out a Randomized Control Trial for your organization (comparing your organization’s data from this study in comparison to a control group namely the Canadian Labour Force Survey – narrowing it down via demographics and by postal codes).
- Explore using administrative data (SIN numbers and tax records of participants) to understand the long-term outcomes of your program as compared to outcomes of similar demographic profiles in the Canadian Labour Force Survey (narrowed down by demographics and by postal codes).
- Do you have any other ideas of evaluation and social impact measurement your organization needs and how we can support? We are happy to discuss!
We understand that non-profit organizations often face financial constraints. Don’t let cost be a barrier. Let us know how we can support your organization in joining the study!