Compensation studies for Youth Development field

On LinkedIn Valerie Leonard, founder of Nonprofit Utopia, posted a comment about compensation of workers in the Youth Development field.

I don't think I have any specific links in the Tutor/Mentor library to reports about compensation in the youth development field so I asked Gemni to give me some information. 

Below is the response:

Working in the youth development field in the United States often involves a wide range of compensation depending on the specific role, region, and type of organization. Recent studies and surveys highlight these disparities and the push for better workforce support.

Here are three research studies and reports detailing compensation levels in the field:

1. National Power of Us Workforce Survey

Conducted by the National AfterSchool Association (NAA) and its partners, this is one of the most comprehensive recent looks at the Out-of-School Time (OST) workforce. The survey provides data on wages, benefits, and the professional backgrounds of youth workers to help advocate for high-quality jobs.

• Key Findings: The study explores the correlation between "high-quality jobs" and staff retention, emphasizing that current compensation levels often do not match the educational levels and commitment of the professionals in the field.

• Website provided by Gemni: National AfterSchool Association News;  This did not go directly to the survey. I searched and found The Power Of Us survey on this Wallace Foundation page

2. Staffing, Compensation, and Benefits Report

The American Camp Association (ACA) regularly publishes detailed reports specifically for the summer camp and seasonal youth development sector. While the most comprehensive full reports are published on a rotating basis (the 2019 report being a major benchmark), they provide specific data for both day and overnight camps.

• Key Findings: The report breaks down salaries and benefits for both year-round and seasonal staff, segmented by camp budget size, region, and affiliation (e.g., non-profit, agency, or independent).

• Website: ACA Research and Innovation.  This site provides a list of reports.

3. Afterschool and Summer Workforce Solutions Database

The Afterschool Alliance maintains ongoing research and a database focused on workforce challenges. Their research often highlights state-level and national trends regarding how pandemic relief funds and new state initiatives are being used to increase compensation and provide additional benefits like mental health support for youth workers.

• Key Findings: Recent updates (2024–2026) show a growing trend of utilizing "intermediary" organizations to bridge the gap in pay and professional development for community-based youth organizations.

• Website: Afterschool Alliance Research.  View list on this page, which focused on funding.

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Current Compensation Estimates (2026)

While formal multi-year academic studies are published periodically, real-time data from professional networks indicates the following for Youth Development Specialists:

• National Average: Approximately $57,130 per year (up from $53,473 in 2023).

• Entry Level: Often ranges between $33,000 and $39,000.

• Top Earners: Can exceed $71,000 in high-cost states like California or Minnesota.

• Source: NASW JobLink Salary Data.  This site is probably the most direct link to information about compensation.

---- end Gemni information ---

In other articles, such as this one, I've asked for a more segmented understanding of youth development, tutor and/or mentoring programs.  These reports illustrate how much that is needed.  

Where the program is located, who it serves, what age group(s) is served, what it's mission and theory of change are, how it is organized and delivers service are all variables that need to be understood when making claims about levels of compensation, and, in building coalitions that raise the visibility of the sector, as part of an on-going strategy of increasing and stabilizing funding.

Budget size should also be included in this research. Organizations with revenue over $1 million may have greater ability to pay higher compensation than organizations with revenue under $250 thousand.

Do you have any specific research on this issue?  Please share it.

Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Mastodon and other platforms. (see links here).

I depend on a small group of donors to help pay the expenses of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Click here to help. 

Check out my articles on Substack.com

Since last August I've been using Substack.com to provide in-depth descriptions of some of my concept maps and visual essays.

This is my most recent. The headline is "What would convince you to support a tutor/mentor program?"

The headline of this article was "Shared Goal". It show actions that would lead to more youth moving safely through school and  into adult lives.

This article is titled "Start planning for fall 2026 tutor/mentor programs." It focuses on annual planning. While May-June is the end of one school year and tutor/mentor programs are celebrating, the new school year starts soon and programs need to be recruiting volunteers to help with planning and operations right now. 

This article asks "Can YOU champion this idea?"  It shows a role many leaders need to take to support birth-to-work programs that reach K-12 youth in areas of concentrated poverty. 

This article is titled "Mentor Kids to Careers - 4 Part Strategy"  

Read all of my Substack.com articles. Find the list on this page. 

Unless many people read and share these too few will ever see the ideas.  That's been the challenge since I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  It's one reason I encourage others to create their own versions of these, and incorporate them into their own leadership and advocacy.

I've depended on a small group of donors to help me pay the bills since 2011.  Many are former Acacia Fraternity brothers from Illinois Wesleyan who I went to school with in the mid 1960s. We're all getting older and each year one or more moves from this life to the afterlife.  

I will join them in the near future. Nothing immediate, but that's not up to me.  Until then, I hope new supporters will visit this page, and offer help for me to keep doing this work.  Thank you. 

Making Out-of-School-Time Programs More Available

 Last week I shared the 2026 State of Chicago Youth report from A Better Chicago in this post.

One of the insights of the report focused on Out-of-School and Community-Based Programs and Spaces.  

Visit this page and open the PDF report to view this page. 

The text above says that "Citywide, during the 2024-2025 school year, 31% of CPS youth K-12 participated in out-of-school programs.  Students in grades 3-8 were the most likely to engage in out-of-school programs (37%) compared to k-2 (29%) and high schoolers (27%).   The North Central (39%) and Far South (34%) regions of the city had the highest percentage of youth engaged in out-of-school programming, while the Near South region had the lowest percentage (23%)."

What the report did not include was an interactive dashboard showing out-of-school programs in Chicago, with an ability to sort by age-group served and type of program.  I would loved to see a page on their website listing the programs that are included in the 31% where CPS youth were engaged.  

For instance, they could point to the MyCHI. MY Future program, which does have a searchable map. I show the result of using the menu at the far right and asking for 'reading and writing' programs for youth between age 16 and 18 in this graphic.

You can enlarge the map and zoom into a specific neighborhood. You can drag the map view so it shows a different part of Chicago. 

When you click on a circle representing a program, you can see a description and find a website.  That's good.  What I found is that many of these are programs hosted at Chicago Public Libraries. While the site has many categories, it does not differentiate between nonprofit youth serving programs and government funded services, like the libraries.  

One strength of MyChi MyFuture is the on-going effort to bring stakeholders together for citywide meeting and to share information via email newsletters, their website and social media.  Furthermore, they have empowered the formation of 14 neighborhood networks of stakeholders to support youth in their communities.  

Visit this page on the MyChi MyFuture website and look at the community plans developed in 2023 and 2024 by each of these networks.  I just finished skimming through them. Some have great data. Some have maps. Most list stakeholders involved.  Most have comprehensive plans that stretch into 2025.

However, I found no links to websites for each of these networks, where they were actively implementing the plans, learning from what works, and each other, and developing actions for 2026 and beyond.  If you have a list of these, please share it and I'll put the link in this article.

What I wanted to find when I looked at the websites of A Better Chicago and MyChiMyFuture was a site that worked like the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, which was built for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 2004.  Below is the screen users would use to search for tutor/mentor programs in different zip codes of Chicago.  Below that is the first page of a visual essay that shows features in this version of the Program Locator.

Open this PDF to see a description of how to use this Program Locator.   In 2008 this was re-built as a map-based directory.  This PDF shows its features. 

These were intended to help youth, teachers, parents, volunteers, donors, media and others find existing programs in different parts of the city, with features that narrowed the search by type of program (pure tutoring, pure mentoring, combination tutor/mentor) and age group served (elementary, middle school, high school). 

This page shows my long-term goal of "Using Maps to Build Capacity".  Due to funding challenges since late 2000s I've never been able to reach this goal, but still share it with hopes that it will inspire work of others.  

The report from A Better Chicago shows that "Chicago has a problem" and "They are part of the solution". And, it uses maps to show which parts of the city need more programs. However, it does not point to any listing or directory of existing programs, to help attract attention and resources to all of them.

The My CHI My Future site seems designed to help kids find opportunities.  I don't see any form of analysis that says "Do we have enough programs? or "Where are more needed?" Or for donors and volunteers to reach out and support existing programs.  I found this type of analysis on many of the community plans hosted by MyChiMyFuture, but in looking at the lists of stakeholders it seems that many of the organizations on my lists are not included in any of these efforts.  

Since I was looking at PDFs of plans developed in 2023-24, it's possible that a greater number of tutor/mentor programs are participating in these networks.

Below is the front cover of the 1995 Tutor/Mentor Connection Chicago Programs Directory.  It was created before we learned about the Internet. It used maps to show where programs were needed, and listed programs with the same sort features as the Program Locator that we put on line in 2004.

Here's a link to an archived version of the 1997 Director. We used this format each year from 1994 to 2003.  If you look at the listings in this Directory you can see the basic outline of the library that you can now found on the www.tutormentorexchange.net website. 

Below is a graphic showing year-round communications intended to draw people together to learn, share and generate resources for youth-support efforts in specific areas.

On this page I share strategies that the Tutor/Mentor Connection piloted, beginning in 1993 and that I still continue in 2026.  

In this article I show organizations who participated in each of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I organized between May 1994 and May 2015. 

Last week I included this map in my first article about the 2026 State of Chicago Youth report.

Ideally each year when I look at the community networks hosted by MyChiMyFuture I would find updated maps and graphics showing participation in their meetings and the sites of youth-serving programs in their community areas.  

And when I see new research from organizations like A Better Chicago, I'd find a page pointing to work being done by others to address the same issues.

Young people could be collecting and updating this information!  Maybe it's something the new Obama Center could champion.

Here's just one more map. 

This concept map shows intermediary organizations who support youth-serving programs in the Chicago region. It includes a link to the website of each organization, so that anyone finding my website and map can also learn about others working to make life better for Chicago youth and families.  Creating and constantly updating a concept map like this could be a project done by youth in each community area.

Read more

* 2019 article - What Tutor and/or Mentor Programs Operate in Chicago Region?

* 2019 article - "Now is the time for action. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good".  See the link to the LISC Chicago "Quality of Life Plans".

* 2020 article - "MyChi. MyFuture. Feedback"

* read these articles about "program design" and building a segmented understanding of what youth-serving programs exist, and where more are needed.

As today's article, and these articles from 2019 and 2020 illustrate, I've been sharing ideas that city leaders could be using for a long time.  

The challenge is motivating people to find time to read these articles and look at what others are doing.  I saw an announcement that "The Obama Foundation and After School Matters will provide paid out-of-school time opportunities to Chicago teens in surrounding communities on the South Side."  

This is exactly the type of program that could encourage teens to dig into articles I've been sharing and the organizations I point to in the Tutor/Mentor library.  As they do that they could be leading efforts that draw more people to the information and into actions that make more and better youth learning and development activities available during out-of-school hours.

That's something A Better Chicago's report is calling for.

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and Mastodon and share my posts with your networks.  

And, if you're able, visit this page and make a small contribution to help me pay the bills.

State of Chicago Youth - 2026 - Our kids need help.

I just read the State of Chicago Youth 2026 report published by A Better Chicago.  

Below is a paragraph from the introduction posted on Page 2 of the report.  It shows that Chicago has nearly 800,000 young people under the age of 25. But, "Opportunity remains out of reach for far too many youth, especially those in Black and Latinx communities on the South and West Sides."

I urge you to visit this page and download the PDF, then read the full report.

Then, take a look at what I wrote last April following the release of the 2025 State of Chicago Youth report.  Everything I wrote then applies now, except that due to ICE immigration raids in Chicago more young people are struggling to find their way through school.  Supportive adults in schools and non-school programs are needed more than ever, but too few still exist.

I think A Better Chicago is doing great work. Since 2010 they have provided more than $50 million in unrestricted funding and management support to help nonprofits in their portfolio grow.  Yet, that's not enough. Chicago (and many suburbs) need great tutor/mentor and learning programs in every high poverty neighborhood.  That means someone needs to be raising funds to help youth programs that are NOT in A Better Chicago's portfolio grow!

In 2011 I obtained data from the Heartland Alliance to create a series of maps showing the number of kids age 6-17 who were living in each Chicago Community Area. I updated that in 2018.  My goal was that planners in each community area would use this information to better understand how many youth-serving programs were needed, and what programs were already available to youth in their area.  

My 2011 (yellow boxes) and 2018 (blue boxes) versions show the total number of youth age 6 to 17 in each community area, and the percent of those youth who were at or below the poverty level.  Based on this planners could determine how many youth serving programs were needed in the area, just to serve a small percent of the kids living there.  

I used the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator map as the base, then added the yellow and blue data boxes using Power Point.  Then I published the report in this visual essay.

Unfortunately the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator is no longer available.  However, if I had updated data I could re-create this report using the map that I host on this page.  Below is an example.

Using this data and my lists of Chicago youth-serving programs, anyone could lead year-round public awareness campaigns intended to educate potential donors, volunteers and business partners and turn them into proactive supporters of existing, or new, programs.

When we were creating the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program in late 1992 we realized that one more great youth-serving program could be life-changing for the few youth and volunteers who become involved, but would have little impact on the more than 200,000 youth living in high poverty areas of Chicago.  So we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, to help all programs, including our own, attract more consistent media and donor attention.

I led this two-part strategy until mid 2011 when the financial crisis that started in 2008 finally caused our board of directors to drop the Tutor/Mentor Connection and focus only on the kids program.  I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to keep the T/MC available in Chicago to try to help similar strategies grow in other cities.  

However, I led this two-part strategy for almost 19 years!  Imagine how much impact might be generated if A Better Chicago and other youth-serving programs adopted this same strategy for almost two decades! 
 

The top graphic shows that attention and resources will grow if the same events and "call to action" are repeated quarterly from year-to-year.  The bottom graphic shows how anyone can be the YOU who calls on their stakeholders to get informed, then get involved, supporting tutor/mentor programs in every high poverty area of Chicago.

What it takes:
As long as someone maintains a list of youth-serving programs and makes it available on a website, anyone can build a campaign that draws attention and support to these programs. That's what I have been doing.  You can find my lists on this page. 

Maybe in a few years one or more intermediaries will be able to create their own version of maps like the one below, which shows participation in the 1994-2015 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that I hosted in Chicago.  See the dashboard on this page. 

For most of the past 30 years I've focused strictly on programs that identified as some form of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring based on this survey.  The programs on my maps are programs that fit this description.  However, I recognized in the late 2000s that I needed to be adding other types of youth-serving programs to my maps, but never was able to do that.  However, I have included many of them on lists found on this page. 

I'm now 79 and not in great health.  Someone needs to step forward and take ownership of my archives and responsibility for building a new youth-program resource that draws volunteers and donors directly to existing programs.

Until that happens, I'd appreciate any help you can offer to keep my lists up-to-date and to share my posts with more people.  That includes sharing them with people in other cities, where there also are concentrations of persistent poverty and too few youth-serving programs.

You can reach me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Mastodon, Twitter and Instagram.  See links on this page.

And, if you'd like to help me cover expenses, visit this page and make a contribution.