We couldn't do this alone. We're not trying to.

YSSI exists at an intersection that most institutions approach separately: sport, STEM, health, and workforce development. Our partners are the ones who said: this combination is important, and we want to be part of making it work.

We're not just looking for organizations that will write a check or lend a logo. The partnerships that have shaped YSSI most deeply are the ones where institutions brought expertise we didn't have, and we brought a student population that their work rarely reaches.That exchange — clinical knowledge meeting a kid from the South Side who has been tracking her own punch stats for three months — is where something real happens.

In Partnership With

  • After School Matters logo
  • Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
  • University of Illinois
  • University of Illinois Discovery Partners Institute department logo
  • Griffin Museum of Science + Industry logo
  • Chicago Public Schools logo
  • Noble Schools logo
  • Rezzil logo
  • Golf + logo

Academic and Research

  • University of Illinois at Chicago / UIUC

    Relationship:
    Curriculum development and applied sports science research

    Our partnership with the University of Illinois connects YSSI's youth programs to university-level expertise in kinesiology, biomechanics, and STEM education. It also creates a pipeline: students who move through YSSI programming and go on to college can see a path into the academic and research side of sport science — not just the playing side.

  • Northwestern Medicine

    Relationship:
    Health science expertise and clinical partnership

    Northwestern Medicine brings clinical sports medicine knowledge into our health literacy programming. Through this relationship, YSSI students learn about injury prevention, recovery science, and long-term athlete health from practitioners who work with professional and collegiate athletes.

  • Lurie Children's Hospital

    Relationship:
    Pediatric health and youth performance research

    Lurie Children's expertise in pediatric health shapes how YSSI teaches young people about their own bodies. This isn't adult sports medicine filtered down — it's age-appropriate performance and health education developed with the understanding that adolescent bodies and minds work differently. That matters when your students are 14.

 Corporate and Technology

  • Accenture

    Relationship:
    Technology and workforce development 

    Accenture's partnership reinforces the core of what YSSI teaches: that data, technology, and analytical thinking aren't abstract skills — they're what the workforce actually runs on. The pipeline from "I made a chart from my boxing stats" to "I could work somewhere that does this every day" becomes visible.

  • Sports Reference

    Relationship:
    Data access and analytics platform

    Sports Reference is one of the most widely used sports data platforms in the world. When YSSI students learn to work with performance data, they're often working with real data from this platform — the same numbers coaches, journalists, and analysts use. We want students to know: this isn't simulated. This is the actual field.

Schools and Community Organizations

  • After School Matters

    Relationship:
    Program delivery and community access — founding partner

    After School Matters is one of Chicago's largest providers of programming for teens — and our longest-standing community partner. YSSI grew in part because of the credibility that came with being recognized as a partner program through After School Matters. For our students, ASM is already a trusted institution. That trust transferred.

  • Chicago Public Schools

    Relationship:
    School-based program delivery

    Sports Reference is one of the most widely used sports data platforms in the world. When YSSI students learn to work with performance data, they're often working with real data from this platform — the same numbers coaches, journalists, and analysts use. We want students to know: this isn't simulated. This is the actual field.

There's more to build.
Let's do it together.

YSSI is actively growing — into more schools, more sports, more cities, and into a near-peer model where students who came through our programs come back to lead them. Every one of those expansions needs partners who share the vision.

Diverse students and mentors posing in purple shirts in a classroom.

School or Program Partner

You bring the students and the space. We bring curriculum, technology, facilitation, and follow-through — and we co-design with every partner to make sure the fit is right for your community. We're not here to install a generic program. We're here to build something that works for the specific students in front of us.

Best for:

CPS schools, park districts, after-school organizations, youth sports programs

Talk to our programs team →
Five-person panel discussing basketball and data in a modern conference room.

Research or Academic Partner

We're building the evaluation infrastructure to document what this model actually produces — not just participation counts, but identity shifts, career interest changes, and long-term outcomes. If you're a researcher who wants to study what sport-based STEM learning does for young people from underserved communities, we want to collaborate.

Best for:

University kinesiology, education, and health departments; research institutes; health systems with youth education programs

Reach out to explore →
Group in purple shirts using VR headsets and controllers indoors.

Funding Partner

Our students are already doing the work. They're tracking their own stats, building dashboards, meeting mentors who've gone where they want to go, and starting to see themselves differently. Your investment sustains that moment — and helps us reach more students who are ready for it and just haven't had the door opened yet.

Best for:

Foundations, corporate social responsibility programs, individual donors

See our impact →
Support YSSI  →