Background
Not all strategic contracts start the same. When the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) approached Onward, the initial objective was to help articulate its logic model, focusing on policy, research, advocacy, and boots-on-the-ground campaign organizing. What began as a straightforward task evolved into a transformational engagement that reset CFYJ’s strategic direction.
Objective
CFYJ, a national initiative dedicated to ending the prosecution, sentencing, and incarceration of youth under 18 in the adult criminal justice system, needed a clear logic model to distill its impact and articulate measures of effect. CFYJ hired Onward LLC to develop a logic model to clarify its programs and ensure alignment with its mission and goals.
Process
- Meticulous Review: CFYJ’s materials, including contracts, grants, evaluation rubrics, strategic documents, and communication collateral.
- Stakeholder Interviews: Interviewed key staff across advocacy, policy, research, and communications.
- Staff Training & Retreat: Led logic model training and a two-day staff retreat, which revealed a pivotal question: Is CFYJ a time-bound campaign or an ongoing organization?
- Board Decision: Facilitated a board retreat, leading to the decision that CFYJ is a campaign.
- Strategic Operationalization: Developed a 3-4 strategic plan with clear goals and workplans, defining the “CFYJ win.”
Outcome
Four years after that board retreat, the campaign ended and CFYJ achieved their win:
- A 70% reduction in youth prosecuted as adults, from 250,000 annually to 76,000.
- A decrease from 10,000 to 3,500 youth residing in adult facilities.
- Legislative changes in 40 states and DC, resulting in over 100 laws making it harder to send children to adult court.
- Raising the age of criminal responsibility to 18 in 11 states, thereby permanently closing the door to the adult system for over 100,000 children annually.
- 22 states narrowed or ended automatic transfer laws, preventing children from being treated as adults.
Impact
Developing the logic model clarified CFYJ’s mission and exposed incongruencies. Addressing those incongruencies led to transformative legislative victories for youth justice.