Measuring What Matters

The inaugural cohort of Ednium's Leadership Launchpad program was life-changing for me. After I graduated from a predominantly white college, the program provided young people of color from Denver—people like me—a space to connect and take action.

That felt especially important at the time. It was during the pandemic, when so many of us felt powerless—which made the community we built through that cohort even more powerful.

We shared a strong responsibility to give back to the city that raised us.

Looking back, those conversations were transformative for me and for Ednium. They laid the groundwork for our organization and what we define as the five domains of alumni agency: Authentic Self, Sense of Purpose, Quality Relationships, Physical and Mental Wellbeing, and Financial Security. (Learn how we define those domains.) We know agency isn’t achieved overnight—it is intentionally built brick by brick with each of these five domains.

A Community-Led Alumni Agency Research Process

An important part of the work I do at Ednium is reimagining how we approach research and data, and how we influence people within systems to do the same; to look beyond outputs—like test scores, graduation rates, or college acceptance numbers—and to emphasize outcomes.

Outcomes tell a different story. They tell us how young alumni feel supported; how they’re navigating their professional and personal journeys; how they’re connected to the world around them; and how secure they are in their financial futures.

Those stories are at the heart of our newest research, the Alumni Agency Outcomes Report, which takes a closer look at the sense of agency among Denver area young alumni. From the development of the report’s questions to its key findings, the research is rooted in alumni voices and alumni experiences—helping us better understand opportunities for Ednium, our partners, and communities to cultivate young people’s sense of agency.

We're proud of how we developed the latest Alumni Agency Outcomes Report. For it, we partnered with researcher Lisa Birdie to identify benchmark questions from validated national surveys. The questions aligned with each of our agency domains, so that our measures are meaningful to our community and connected to broad, national research.

Our community of alumni then refined the questions. We asked: Do these questions resonate? Are they reflective of our community? The result: research that is personal, tangible, and reflective of our priorities around understanding alumni agency.

Some Key Findings
Across the five key domains of young adult agency, we found that alumni surveyed by Ednium are most confident in embodying their authentic self, and in finding and living their sense of purpose. They are least confident in taking steps in support of their long term financial goals. While the full report is packed with valuable, nuanced information, we’ve identified other high-level findings, including:

• Alumni generally find they are able to express their authentic self in family and friend settings, but report a more mixed experience in professional settings often code-switching—or changing the ways in which they talk, dress or act in professional spaces.
• They have clarity on what is important to them, and many report at least a somewhat clear sense of purpose in life. For 81%, making the world a better place is at least somewhat important to them. However, less than a quarter of young alumni report that most of their daily activities are aligned with their goals and sense of purpose.

• Alumni report less frequently receiving the social and emotional support they need compared to adults across the U.S. And when asked about specific sources of support, sizable minorities of young alumni report low confidence in finding this support.
• Respondents report lower levels of physical and mental wellbeing than the general U.S. population.
• Like other young adults across the country, a large majority of young alumni reported experiencing stress because of their finances. In particular, they reported that they are managing too much debt.

Why These Findings Matter & What’s Next
Through our work on credentials of value, I met a student who earned a Certified Nursing Assistant's certification in high school. She built strong relationships with mentors and her peers, felt a sense of purpose, and had a clear professional pathway when she graduated.

By 19, she was working in a hospital while studying biology in college, and she had a strong financial and professional foundation.

That’s the power of possibility when systems work for students and a strong sense of agency is supported.

We’re excited to share the Alumni Agency Outcomes with educators, policymakers, and community leaders, so they can join us in building alumni agency across the city.

This is just the first step. The findings from this report will also inform action, help us continue to refine our programming, strengthen alumni development strategies, and deepen partnerships across the metro area. We also want these measures to influence larger accountability systems—from statewide performance frameworks to district and school scorecards—so that institutions are working alongside community toward outcomes that reflect alumni’s lived experiences.

A new member of the Ednium community—a second grade teacher at a Denver elementary school—told me that the space Ednium creates has helped her find the confidence to be a leader, and engage in conversations about policy and systems changes. That could be you, too. It’s not too late to get involved. Together, we can advocate for systems that work for everyone.