Youth Policy Institute (YPI)

Youth Policy Institute transforms Los Angeles neighborhoods using a holistic approach to reduce poverty by ensuring families have access to high quality schools, wrap-around education and technology services, enabling a successful transition from cradle to college and career.
 
Since the 1990’s, YPI has successfully blended multiple funding streams and partnerships to saturate Los Angeles communities with critically needed services. YPI currently operates a $41 million budget and places more than 1,200 staff at 125 service sites throughout Los Angeles. YPI provide programs and services to more than 100,000 clients each year.

For more than 30 years, YPI has been breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty. At the core of our commitment to serving key high-need communities in Los Angeles with essential resources and support services, we focus on direct education and comprehensive services including early childhood education, tutoring, operating K–12 schools, college preparation, computer labs, case management, financial capability, and job training.

Originally part of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, YPI was founded in 1983 in Washington, D.C. In 1996, YPI relocated to Los Angeles to focus on direct education and comprehensive services including early childhood education, tutoring, operating K–12 schools, college preparation, computer labs, case management, financial empowerment, and job training.

Now over 1,500 YPI employees serve some of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods, reaching more than 112,000 youth and adults annually at 152 program sites in Los Angeles. YPI is the only nonprofit in the country to receive all three signature federal Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative grants: Promise Neighborhoods (twice), Choice Neighborhoods, Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation, and the Los Angeles Promise Zone designation, making YPI the lead implementation partner for the zone.