In February we announced six organizations selected through the Reconstruct Challenge: Thriving Youth. Five months into their 12-month pilots, we are publishing what we have learned so far, including the parts that are not working yet.
The mid-term report was produced with Relativ Impact as the independent evaluator and covers March 1 through July 31, 2026.
Behind every measure in this report are young people navigating the transition out of foster care, and a network of partners working to build something better.
The video shows why this work matters. The mid-term report asks the next question:
What are these pilots actually teaching us?
Five Months at a Glance
39 young people served in the first five months
15 new referral partners built against a period target of 6
19 young people newly housed across two pilots
$300K+ in follow-on capital waiting for what proves out
What the first five months produced
Six ventures received $100,000 each to test new approaches against the three leverage points identified through the research behind this challenge:
Supportive adult relationships. Safe and affordable housing. Accessible mental health care.
What we can report today is delivery, not outcomes. That distinction matters.
At Lumen Flats in Knoxville, Elmington Elevates and TN Voices are operating under one roof with two Tennessee Department of Children’s Services case managers on site. HUD and Knoxville’s Community Development Corporation converted Foster Youth to Independence vouchers into project-based vouchers tied to the 18-unit property for 20 years.
That structure has secured more than $5.5 million in rental assistance for young people who will live there.
It is also changing what support can look like after move-in.
“It’s just a place where you can foster growth, but you can also heal from the past.”
- Heaven, 20, Resident at Lumen Flats
Jonathan's Path is moving young people from first contact to move-in in approximately 7–14 days, compared with a target of 30 days.
Connect Our Kids has created 20 relationship maps against a 50-map pilot target, averaging 7.5 connections per young person. In Chattanooga, one map surfaced a half-brother nobody had mentioned. The two connected within hours.
Forward Steps built 15 referral relationships against a period target of 6, and drew 12 applications for 6 places in its first cohort. Chattanooga State alone has identified roughly 20 more eligible students.
Across the portfolio, new referral routes, housing pathways, partnerships, and resources are beginning to take shape.
That is meaningful progress.
It is not the same thing as proving long-term outcomes.
What We Are Not Claiming Yet
Five months is early.
There was no baseline taken for every measure. There is no comparison group. The numbers are still small. Tennessee also extended voluntary foster care services to age 23 during this same period, changing the environment in which these pilots are operating.
So we are reporting progress as description, not causation.
We can say that the pilots are delivering the mechanisms they were designed to test.
We cannot yet say those mechanisms caused a different life outcome.
The evaluation also surfaced areas where the work itself needs to improve. The evidence architecture has not always kept pace with delivery, and the direct perspectives of young people are not yet represented at the depth this work requires.
Both are being strengthened in the second half of the pilots through clearer measures and centralized youth and practitioner feedback. That transparency is part of the model.
As one funder reflected in the report:
“Transparency breeds confidence.”
Testing something new only works if there is room to say when something needs to change.
One Pilot Concluded. That Is the Model Working.
New Culture scoped sites, built partnerships and finalized its Navigator role. After four months without sufficient referral activity, the team named its own blockers and chose not to move forward.
It used $7,500 of its $100,000 award. The rest went back into the follow-on capital pool.
A reverse pitch exists to fund untested possibilities, which means some of them will not work. The question is whether you find that out early, at low cost, with the learning captured and the young people protected. That is what happened here, and we are grateful to New Culture for the candor it brought to the decision.
Three invitations
Resource the ventures. Connect Our Kids, Elmington Elevates, Forward Steps, Jonathan's Path and TN Voices need more than encouragement. They need connections, expertise, partnerships, visibility and referral routes. If something here sparks an idea, reach out to them directly.
Help us grow the fund. We are working to grow the follow-on pool from $300,000 to $400,000 so more of what proves out can keep going. If you or someone in your network wants to invest alongside us, get in touch.
Expand the table. If there is someone whose perspective, relationships or resources would strengthen outcomes for young people aging out of care, send us their name.
Read the Full Mid-Term Report
The full report shares the progress of each pilot, what the evaluation is showing us, the risks still being carried, and what we need to learn before final decisions are made in 2027.
The research behind the challenge, including the Landscape Study and the Impact and Investment Case, is available through Belmont Innovation Labs.
The Reconstruct Challenge is a reverse pitch program–powered by Access Ventures, a Louisville-based impact multiplier–that unearths innovations from around the country to address a community’s most pressing social issues. The program recognizes that the innovators with the greatest insights often face barriers to capital, market access, and connections that make them harder to find and slower to scale. Reconstruct finds these solutions and runs paid pilots, grounded in community voice, academic research, and industry mentoring, to mitigate the risk for both innovators and partners.
To date, Reconstruct has funded over 20 innovators and deployed over $4m in risk capital.