Zukunftsträger Initiative

The Zukun­ft­sträger ini­tia­tive sup­ports dis­ad­van­taged young peo­ple in Ger­many on their path to a career. To this end, it funds and enables local stake­hold­ers who build strong alliances of schools, com­pa­nies, gov­ern­ment agen­cies and civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions in their regions. These alliances work close­ly togeth­er and coor­di­nate their ser­vices to increase young peo­ple’s chances of suc­cess­ful­ly enter­ing appren­tice­ships and employment.

Why is this pro­gram needed?

As soon as the play­ers work togeth­er and share their exper­tise, every­one ben­e­fits: the state, the econ­o­my and espe­cial­ly the young peo­ple them­selves. Thanks to suit­able indi­vid­ual sup­port and clear struc­tures, they find their way through the cos­mos of tran­si­tion. Empow­ered and self-deter­mined, they improve their own prospects. The acute short­age of jobs and skilled work­ers is counteracted.

Who is imple­ment­ing the project in the dif­fer­ent regions?

So far, the ini­tia­tive is sup­port­ing three civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions that are build­ing and coor­di­nat­ing their net­works in regions of Munich, Rhine-Neckar and Leipzig. 

HEIZHAUS of Urban Souls e.V. is at the heart of the net­work in Leipzig. The expe­ri­enced social work orga­ni­za­tion has strong roots in youth cul­ture, such as skate­board­ing, and thus offers young peo­ple an attrac­tive, some­what dif­fer­ent approach. Togeth­er with its region­al net­work of com­mit­ted stake­hold­ers, HEIZHAUS focus­es on work in the Grü­nau dis­trict. In some dis­tricts, almost one in four young peo­ple cur­rent­ly leave school with­out any qual­i­fi­ca­tions. A con­sis­tent con­tact point and spe­cif­ic offers around open youth work are intend­ed to open new prospects for these young peo­ple. Click here for the web­site (in Ger­man): Zukun­ft­sträger Leipzig

Zukun­ft­sträger also found an expe­ri­enced and well-con­nect­ed anchor orga­ni­za­tion in the Rhine-Neckar met­ro­pol­i­tan region. Here, EDU­CA­TION Y e.V. is build­ing up the region­al net­work with many dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers and, as part of the net­work, is plac­ing a par­tic­u­lar focus on work­ing with teach­ers at Realschulen plus in Lud­wigshafen. The aim of the project is to pro­vide young peo­ple with the best pos­si­ble sup­port in start­ing their careers with addi­tion­al ser­vices to pro­mote skills, per­son­al devel­op­ment, and train­ing sup­port. Click here for the web­site (in Ger­man): Zukun­ft­sträger Metropol­re­gion Rhein-Neckar

The non-prof­it START­STARK GmbH has cre­at­ed the frame­work for the Munich net­work from 2020 – 2023. Togeth­er with many dif­fer­ent part­ners, START­STARK sup­ports young peo­ple in the con­text of their social envi­ron­ment in find­ing a suit­able and sus­tain­able career path. The focus is on pupils in the 7^th — 9^th grade, trainees in the 1^st and 2^nd year of train­ing and so-called hard-to-reach young peo­ple up to the age of 25. 

Since May 2024, the anchor orga­ni­za­tion Con­drobs e.V. coor­di­nates the Munich net­work.

What is cur­rent­ly happening?

In the sec­ond fund­ing phase (since 07/2023), fur­ther region­al net­works are being estab­lished. To this end, the Zukun­ft­sträger team, with sup­port of an Advi­so­ry Group, is ana­lyz­ing where stake­hold­ers from the eco­nom­ic, social and pub­lic sec­tors can be net­worked par­tic­u­lar­ly well and under what con­di­tions ser­vice struc­tures can be created. 

PHI­NEO sup­ports the estab­lish­ment of sus­tain­able struc­tures that remain in place even after the end of the fund­ing peri­od. This is why we facil­i­tate an exten­sive exchange of expe­ri­ence and inten­sive sup­port for the fund­ed net­works. It enables us to learn even more about how local col­lab­o­ra­tives work best, how exact­ly they work and how spon­sors can best sup­port them. We would like to make this knowl­edge freely avail­able and thus pro­mote the Col­lec­tive Impact approach in Ger­many. Click here for the free online course ​“Col­lec­tive Impact” (cur­rent­ly only in German).

Who sup­ports Zukunftsträger?

The non­prof­it analy­sis and con­sult­ing com­pa­ny PHI­NEO launched the Zukun­ft­sträger Ini­tia­tive togeth­er with J.P. Mor­gan as part of its ​“New Skills at Work Initiative”.

Dura­tion: 2019 — 2026