In March 2015, Centre[3] for Print and Media Arts, Threshold School of Building (employment program), Hamilton Youth Poets (HYP), Wesley Urban Ministries and the Mental Health Rights Coalition came together to form a Collective Impact (CI) group to focus on job retention for youth. Centre[3] became the backbone and submitted the first application to the Laidlaw Foundation for the “Conversation-Starter Micro Grant”.  They secured the grant and had their first meeting of the CI.  In July of 2015, the collecitve submitted the “self-assessment application” to the Laidlaw Foundation and was invited to attend Workshop I.  While at Workshop I, the collective met another Hamilton CI group lead by City Housing. Not wanting redundancy, both groups joined forces to make one collective impact group with a focus on enmployment and job retention for youth between 22-26 who live in the Hamilton downtown core. The CI was named Hamilton: 20:2020. The name dervided from the goal of by 2020 the CI wanted to move the needle to reduce the unemployment rate for youth in Hamilton.  From there they filled out a YouthCI application to secure a Development Coach.  In February 2016 they succeeded and were assigned Coach Nancy Dubois for six months (February to July).  The objectives were to confirm the Intended Impact Statement, develop an Engagement Strategy for additional partners and determine how youth will be involved in the initiative. 

Over the course of the six months, YouthCAN formed sub-groups to work on different areas of the Collective Impact:  Impact Statement (IS), Theory of Change (TOC), Logic Model and a Governance Model. During this phase the Impact Statement was revised many times. They also appointed two new youth leaders: Gonca Aydin, a graduate of an employment program, and Chris Zhou, a McMaster Health Sciences student and member of the Prime Minister Youth Council. With Coach Lynn, the sub-group spent a lot of time discussing the intended impact statement, and determining the target population.  Initially they focused on youth who face barriers to employment, but then realized it was a complicated measurement and might require youth to disclose barriers they face, which creates an additional barrier. We then discovered the term NEET (neither in education, employment or training), a term Stats Canada recognizes and collects data against nationally.  They eventually acquired the 2016 NEET stats for Hamilton, for youth aged 15-29, which shows that 13.9% of youth are NEET. The sub-group revised the old statement and decided to: change the timeline from 2020 to 2025, work with the NEET data, and include the term ‘self-identifying.’ 

In January 2018, YouthCAN submitted and secured a six month (March to October ) YouthCI Launch Grant to implement their TOC. Currently YouthCAN is made up of 30+ participants from: employment programs; employment agencies, educational institutions, youth groups, art-based groups, social services, McMaster University, the health sector, and youth members who all have a vested interest in youth and employment in Hamilton.  YouthCAN hired Shahd Salman to be the Project Coordinator and nominated co-chairs for each strategy.  YouthCAN also hired Zach Anderson from Twelve Canada to be the Third Party Evaluator.