New Pathways New Orleans (NPNO), a New Orleans-based nonprofit founded in 2016 aims to build cross-sector solutions for New Orleans youth with the most significant needs by bringing knowledge and new resources to the table, aligning stakeholders into action, and catalyzing program and system-level innovation.

trepwise Advisors, working in collaboration with a team from Square Button Consulting, were engaged by NPNO, to conduct a strategic planning process. The organization sought answers to key questions around how it could define its impact and place within an already crowded nonprofit ecosystem.

An innovative 8-month strategic planning process involving more than two dozen stakeholder interviews, focus groups with youth and parents, an assessment of peer organizations, and a series of advisory group meetings including key stakeholders from across the special education, mental and behavioral health, and juvenile justice ecosystem.

Our work focused on catalyzing shared solutions across education, mental and behavioral health, and juvenile justice by building collective knowledge, facilitating shared vision and problem solving, and bringing new resources to the table in the form of funding, staff support, and advocacy.

Engagement highlights included:

• High-Level Theory of Change.
• Recommendation of 20 strategies aimed at creating a local youth-serving ecosystem where all youth have pathways to success.
• Creation of a detailed expense-side financial model.
• Articulation of key next steps to provide the organization with a roadmap for implementation.