About the Initiative

Equitable Futures is designed to support the professionals and advocates who work to open up more equitable opportunities for young people to explore their career and life goals: educators, program designers, direct service providers, policymakers, advocates, and funders. This website also serves as a platform for partner organizations that work in these same spaces. 

The work of Equitable Futures is anchored by quantitative and qualitative research conducted with Black and Latino young people, and young people experiencing poverty, between the ages of 15-24. The main focus of the research is to explore how these groups of young people think about their future lives when it comes to education and work. The core insights from this 2018-2019 research are captured in a report, Striving to Thriving. In 2020 and 2021, researchers for Equitable Futures conducted a National Youth Poll to study the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and other events on young people’s thinking about their educational and employment goals. 

Equitable Futures is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of its Education Pathways strategy. The Pathways strategy focuses on better supporting students during key transition points in their education to employment journey so they can have the professional skills, agency, and social capital needed to thrive in the workforce. For more of the Foundation’s Education Pathways strategy, check out Accelerate ED, one of their grantmaking initiatives.

Artwork and images on Equitable Futures are credited to the individual youth artists who created them. When not credited, photography was sourced from Unsplash.com under an open and free license and from EduImages by All4Ed under a Creative Commons license.