Building Trust & Partnership with the Aspen Institute Alliance for Social Trust
The Rural Youth Institute is excited for the opportunity to build and strengthen a partnership with the Aspen Institute's Alliance for Social Trust, a national initiative dedicated to strengthening the social fabric of communities across the United States. The Alliance, supported by Allstate Insurance, works to identify, connect, and elevate organizations doing meaningful trust-building work at the local level.
This spring, RYI submitted a collaborative application to the Alliance's Trust in Practice Awards alongside four Aspirations Incubator community partners. The proposed two-year project would deepen the Aspirations Incubator's trust-building work across rural Maine, piloting new practices around intergenerational relationships, civic engagement, and community connection. The application was recognized among the top 10% of all submissions nationwide out of more than 1,600 applicants and marks the beginning of a meaningful connection with the Alliance.
As a result of this distinction, RYI’s Executive Director Meg Taft and Lyndsey Smith from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension's NorthStar 4-H Youth Mentoring program have been invited to attend the 2026 Trust in Practice Summit in Chicago on May 18th, joining trust-builders from across the country to share, learn, and connect.
RYI's Proposal: Evolving the Aspirations Incubator
RYI submitted the proposal as the backbone organization for a collaboration that included four established Aspirations Incubator community partners and the Data Innovation Project at the University of Southern Maine:
Midcoast Youth Center (Bath, ME): Waypoint program
University of Maine Cooperative Extension 4-H Foundation (Bethel, Oxford Hills, and Lincolnville, ME): NorthStar 4-H Youth Mentoring program
Lubec Community Outreach Center (Lubec, ME): Roots + Wings program
Rivers + Roads (Oxford County, ME): DreamCatchers program
The proposed two-year project has the goal of strengthening and expanding the Aspirations Incubator's work in social trust-building across rural Maine, piloting and refining new practices around intergenerational relationships, civic engagement, and community connection. Partners identified four shared community challenges driving their proposed work: socioeconomic and family instability, geographic isolation and transportation barriers, youth engagement and well-being, and intergenerational disconnection.
Planned activities range from cross-generational storytelling and community service projects to low-barrier gatherings including cooking, arts, nature-based experiences designed to bring youth and adults together in authentic, trust-centered ways. The Data Innovation Project acts as a leader within this proposal through evaluation efforts and producing a policy brief to share findings with the broader youth development field.
Building Trust Where Young People Live
RYI and our partners are deeply inspired by the Trust in Practice concept, as its values and practice are in alignment with our goals. We’re eager to carry this work outlined in this proposal forward in the future, and look forward to additional opportunities for support.
More than half of Maine's high school students report feeling they don't matter in their community. In Maine’s most rural counties, childhood poverty exceeds 20%, and geographic isolation compounds every barrier young people face. Statistics like these remind us that our work has real purpose within the communities we serve. The upcoming Trust in Practice Summit in Chicago will allow RYI to connect with those who share our mission, and take back meaningful insights home to our communities, our partners, and the young people we serve.
