Our Story

Many things have changed since 1995, including our name. But all these years later, COMPASS Youth Collaborative still has the same vision: building a community where our youth feel safe, live peacefully, and have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

As the Southend Knightriders Center became popular, we began looking for ways to provide more services to meet the needs of Hartford youth. In 2004, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving awarded COMPASS Youth Collaborative a grant to implement and coordinate quality before, during, and after school programs in three Hartford Community Schools.

In 2006, COMPASS was awarded a grant to fund the Peacebuilders initiative. This collaboration with the City of Hartford used an unconventional and unique blend of anti- violence strategy and youth development techniques to reach disconnected youth ages 13-18.

During this time, COMPASS served hundreds of Hartford youth aged 5 to 18.

In February 2019, under the leadership of COMPASS CEO Jackie Santiago Nazario, the COMPASS staff and Board of Directors held several meetings with consultant David Hunter. The goal of the conversations was to develop a Theory of Change for COMPASS— specifically, outlining how to create the positive change we want for our youth.

Mr. Hunter pushed the team to look at our organization’s work, what we do well, where we have challenges, and where we have opportunities.

We began with a goal for our youth: becoming ready, willing, and able to succeed in education, employment, and life. Then, we worked backward. We asked ourselves, what tools do youth need to succeed? What does our organization need to look like to provide these tools effectively?

As we looked closely at our structure, it became evident that we would have to focus our work to make the most significant impact. That led us to make the difficult decision to narrow our target program participants to high-risk youth in the City of Hartford, ages 16-20.

Since 2019, we have refined our work and designed our program to interrupt violence in Hartford by working with youth at the center of the violence. Our mission is to build transformative relationships that provide youth the tools they need to create sustained behavior change and transition successfully to adulthood.