Strengthening Youth Sports Ecosystems for Positive Youth Development

Youth sports can provide powerful environments where young people build meaningful relationships, develop essential life skills, and gain confidence to succeed in school, career exploration and planning, and life. When families, coaches, schools, community organizations, and local leaders work together, youth sports become more than athletic experiences. They become platforms for positive youth development, leadership, skill-building, and long-term success.

AIR partners with local, national, and international youth sports organizations, sport-based youth development programs, foundations, coaching initiatives, and communities to strengthen youth sports ecosystems. Drawing on deep expertise in research, evaluation, technical assistance, and capacity building, we help partners identify and strengthen connections across programs and systems, align around shared goals, and use data to drive continuous improvement and lasting impact.

Whether supporting a new initiative or helping an established organization evolve and scale, AIR provides the tools, insights, and support needed to design intentional, evidence-based programs and build more connected systems that better serve young people.

Our work includes:

• Research and evaluation services to assess program quality, implementation fidelity, participant outcomes, and overall impact;
  
• Youth sports ecosystem assessments and needs-sensing processes to identify community strengths, gaps, and opportunities;
  
• Co-development of theories of change, logic models, and program supports that integrate positive youth development principles and guide learning and evaluation efforts;
  
• Design and implementation of data infrastructure, measurement frameworks, and performance-monitoring systems that support learning and decision-making;
  
• Capacity-building support to help organizations use data effectively and engage in continuous quality improvement;
  
• Facilitation of communities of practice and learning networks that strengthen organizational capacity, knowledge sharing, and collaboration; and
  
• Strategic planning and systems-building efforts that align partners, resources, and goals to create sustainable impact for youth and communities.