Youth Voice & Ecosystem Building
Thrive Alliance is committed to strengthening the effectiveness, sustainability, and connectedness of youth-serving organizations across San Mateo County. Half of all mental health conditions begin by age fourteen — and most go undetected. At the same time, youth-serving nonprofits are navigating budget shortfalls and hiring freezes: need is rising while capacity shrinks.
For years, Thrive has supported this work through convenings like the Partnerships in Education Summit, which brings together over 200 leaders, practitioners, and community members each year, and through youth-led advocacy in our Youth Policy Affinity Group. Thanks to the generosity of the Sand Hill Foundation, we’re now building on that foundation to create lasting connective infrastructure for the county’s youth-serving sector.
San Mateo County has never lacked organizations doing extraordinary work on behalf of young people, or strong collaboratives bringing them together. What’s often missing is the connective tissue between them — a shared way to find each other, learn from each other, and speak with one voice when it counts. As the alliance of nonprofits for San Mateo County, Thrive is a bridge between nonprofits, schools, county government, philanthropy, and civic leaders, working to help the needs of young people, particularly around mental health and wellbeing, be prioritized and effectively addressed. We’re using that position to strengthen what already exists rather than add another program or collaborative to the field.
This work supports United for Youth: Vision 2030, a countywide plan of action led by the Coalition for Safe Schools and Communities, with the San Mateo County Office of Education as backbone agency and more than 20 public agencies and community-based organizations taking part. Thrive Alliance coordinates one component of the plan: the nonprofit youth-serving ecosystem. That means helping the county’s youth-serving nonprofits align around Vision 2030’s priorities, collaborate, and advocate together, and bridging between countywide strategy and the organizations that deliver on the ground.
Communities of Practice
Launching in January 2027, the Communities of Practice is a peer network for youth-serving nonprofits across San Mateo County: a place to learn from each other, build the partnerships referrals depend on, collaborate on shared challenges, and influence the policies and investments that affect young people. It isn’t another collaborative. It’s connective tissue across the strong collaboratives the county already has, so organizations already deep in one find their participation more valuable, not less. We’re designing it with nonprofits, not for them, through a working session in December, conversations with nonprofit leaders, and a countywide survey open to every youth-serving nonprofit in the county.
Research
In partnership with Stanford’s John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities, Thrive Alliance is mapping how San Mateo County’s youth-serving system actually works: how stakeholders, policies, resources, and community assets interact to support young people, where the leverage points are, and where connections break. That System Strategy Map will shape a shared framework for measuring whether coordination improves. Drawing on the Gardner Center's 25 years of community-engaged research in San Mateo County, this partnership gives organizations a common language for progress and helps us share what we learn with the broader community.
Youth Policy Affinity Group
The Youth Policy Affinity Group (Youth PAG) centers the voices, experiences, and leadership of young people in policy and advocacy efforts across San Mateo County. Convened by Thrive Alliance in partnership with the San Mateo County Health Division of Public Health, Policy, and Planning, Youth PAG creates a space for adult allies to listen, learn, and support youth-led advocacy. Recognizing that young people are deeply impacted by decisions related to education, housing, public safety, and civic participation yet are often excluded from policy conversations, Youth PAG convenes youth and youth-serving organizations across issues to build advocacy skills, elevate youth priorities, and inform local policy efforts. The group meets on the second Wednesday of each month.
Summit for Partnerships in Education
IIn partnership with the San Mateo County Office of Education, Thrive has hosted numerous annual convenings with diverse stakeholders to foster cross-sector collaboration, share innovative data-driven strategies, and create a unified vision for educational equity across the county. Emerging from the work of the Coalition for Safe Schools and Communities and the broader United for Youth: Vision 2030 Plan of Action effort, Partnerships in Education convenings bring together education leaders, nonprofits, philanthropy, health partners, and government to strengthen collaboration and advance a holistic approach to youth well-being.
In 2025, the series included two gatherings: the Convening on Partnerships in Education, which introduced the United For Youth: Vision 2030 Plan of Action, and the Partnerships in Education Summit, which brought together nearly 250 attendees to highlight local nonprofit efforts supporting youth mental health through community cultural wealth, healing practices, and cross-sector partnerships.
In 2026, the San Mateo County Office of Education, Thrive Alliance, and the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University partnered again to recommit to achieving the goals of the United for Youth plan, even in this uncertain environment
This work is only possible in partnership — with the San Mateo County Office of Education, the Coalition for Safe Schools and Communities, Stanford's Haas Center for Public Service, and Stanford's John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities, among many others. We're grateful to Sand Hill Foundation for investing in this vision and making it possible to turn individual programs into a resilient, lasting system of support for the county's youth.
THRIVE ALLIANCE
Sobrato Center for Nonprofits - Redwood Shores
330 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 155
Redwood City, CA 94065
650-622-4117
info@ThriveAlliance.org
Monday - Friday 9:00am – 5:00pm
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