AI is sweeping the globe in record time compared to technology that has come before it. Once the internet became widely available, it took roughly six years to make it into half of American households. Instagram took two months to reach 1M users. But AI? It moved at warp speed. ChatGPT took just five days to reach 100M users. When you think about all that AI can do, it’s no wonder it took off so quickly. Today, just under three years after it debuted, it’s capable of filling in almost any role imaginable at a PhD level, which makes it an invaluable tool, especially for OST professionals who often wear many hats while juggling multiple responsibilities on a shoestring budget.

That’s why you should start using AI as a tool to create your very own, tailored advisory board that can offer support, clarity, and perspective on demand.

A traditional advisory board is a group of trusted mentors or coaches who can help you grow professionally. This body broadens your perspective by guiding, questioning, testing, and supporting you and your organization. The biggest challenge is curating and organizing a group of highly sought after professionals who have both the time and interest in working with you. But with generative AI, you can have exactly the mix of expertise you need at your fingertips.

Imagine having a team to help you think through funding strategies, youth engagement, partnership building, or staff morale 24/7. AI offers just that with as much diversity of thought as you invite and an environment of psychological safety that allows you to explore risky ideas. Plus, they’re not limited by human challenges like location, connections, or time constraints.

How to Build Your Own AI-Powered Advisory Board
The most effective way to start using AI as a thought partner is simple: write a thoughtful and comprehensive prompt and keep it handy. This prompt will act as your script for launching conversations with your virtual advisory board, no matter the issue you’re exploring. Because most free AI tools do not remember past conversations, you’ll re-use this prompt each time you start a new session. Think of it as a standing meeting with trusted advisors who are always available to support your growth, creativity, and professional development.

Step 1: Identify the Roles You Need
Start by choosing three to five advisory roles that represent the types of perspectives you most often need in your work. Each role should offer a unique way of thinking. You can switch out these roles to fit the needs of your inquiry each time you meet with your Advisory Board.

Example roles:

• The Storyteller
• The Equity Champion
• The Systems Thinker
• The Youth-Centered Innovator
• The Bold Challenger
• The Development Strategist

Step 2: Define Each Persona in Plain Language
Because free AI tools do not retain memory across sessions, you will need to define your advisory board within each prompt. Describe each advisor’s role clearly and concisely.

Examples:

• The Storyteller: An emotionally intuitive advisor who helps me turn ideas into compelling, audience-centered messages.
• The Equity Champion: A leader who ensures that decisions center underrepresented voices and community impact.
• The Systems Thinker: A detail-oriented strategist who prioritizes structure, sustainability, and clarity.
• The Youth-Centered Innovator: A practitioner who helps me see issues and solutions through the lens of young people’s lived experiences.
• The Bold Challenger: A fearless idea-generator who encourages me to take risks, reimagine what's possible, and step outside traditional boundaries.
• The Development Strategist: A relationship-driven advisor who guides me in aligning programs with funder interests, crafting persuasive cases for support, and building long-term fundraising capacity.

Step 3: Write a Prompt That Activates the Board
Once your roles are defined, write a single prompt that introduces your advisory board and describes the scenario you are facing.

Sample prompt:

Act as my virtual Advisory Board. You are made up of six expert voices, each offering a different perspective to help me think through challenges in my work as an afterschool professional.

1. The Storyteller – helps frame ideas in ways that inspire and connect with families, funders, and stakeholders.
2. The Equity Champion – centers justice, inclusion, and community responsiveness in all decision-making.
3. The Systems Thinker – ensures sustainability, operational clarity, and effective infrastructure.
4. The Youth-Centered Innovator – reflects the lived experiences, needs, and voices of young people.
5. The Bold Challenger – pushes my thinking toward innovation, calculated risk-taking, and bold action.
6. The Development Strategist – offers insight into fundraising, donor engagement, and aligning our work with funding priorities.

I am currently [insert your situation here]. What would each advisor recommend or ask me to consider?

Step 4: Prompt Follow-up Questions
After the initial responses, you can go deeper by asking targeted follow-ups. For example:

• What additional questions would the Systems Thinker ask me?
• How might the Storyteller frame this for my board or parent community?
• What risks would the Bold Challenger encourage me to take?

Step 5: Save and Reuse
Since free AI tools do not store memory, you should save your advisory board prompt as a document or note. Reuse and modify it based on your needs. Over time, you can evolve your board by adjusting personas or adding new ones.

BONUS: Build a Custom GPT
When you upgrade to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month, you can create a custom GPT that remembers your advisory board roles and keeps it handy anytime you need a consult. This allows you to simply say, "Advisory Board, I need help with [topic]" without re-entering the full prompt each time.

Leverage Your Advisory Board Every Day
Now that you know how to build your AI Advisory Board, develop a habit of integrating it into your daily workflow. Use it before staff meetings, program launches, or big decisions. And rotate your board members depending on your needs. But remember that while AI is an excellent supplement, it’s not a replacement for real human relationships, especially in a people-centered field like OST.

The best thing about an AI Advisory Board is that your own leadership and innovation can be supported by expert-level, holistic thinking. You already have what it takes, this is just one more tool to help you grow.

While AI makes it possible to access expertise on demand, nothing replaces the richness of in-person networking. Meeting peers and mentors face to face builds trust, sparks spontaneous insights, and deepens relationships in ways that digital interactions rarely can. For OST professionals, conferences, local convenings, and informal meetups create vital spaces to exchange ideas, celebrate successes, and form lasting collaborations. Facilitating these opportunities by organizing community gatherings, encouraging team participation in field events, or carving out time for peer-to-peer connection ensures your professional growth is grounded not only in AI-driven opportunities but also in authentic human relationships.

More NAA Resources to Help You Thrive

The advisory board model is just one way OST professionals can use AI to strengthen their practice. NAA offers a range of additional resources to help you lead with clarity, support your teams, and grow professionally:

• The OST Leader’s Guide to Leveraging Artificial Intelligence
• Webinar: The OST Leader's Guide to Leveraging AI
• Out-of-School Time Job Quality Standards

As summer winds down and some programs begin to wrap, it's a great time to pause and ask, “How do we know what kind of difference we made?” In a recent article, Brandis Stockman of the National League of Cities shares five key strategies for assessing the effectiveness of summer youth programs — including setting clear goals from the start, gathering both quantitative and qualitative data, and engaging youth and families in reflection.

While written with summer in mind, these tips are just as relevant for programs operating year-round. Taking time to reflect now can not only help tell the story of this summer’s impact. It can also inform planning for fall and beyond.

Read the full article from the National League of Cities today and explore the valuable Summer Learning Toolkit from the Wallace Foundation for resources on designing strong summer programs.

In an ever-changing landscape of funding uncertainties, policy shifts, and program disruptions, effective leadership starts with preparation.

That’s why NAA is offering a new, members-only webinar: Scenario Planning for OST Leaders, hosted by NAA President & CEO Gina Warner.

Join us on Wednesday, June 11 at 1 p.m. Eastern for a focused, practical approach to scenario planning designed specifically for out-of-school time leaders. Attendees will explore how to lead with intention and clarity by aligning strategy, communication, and workforce well-being, even when the path ahead is unclear.

Participants will gain:

• A flexible framework for planning best-, mid-, and worst-case scenarios
• Tools to develop strong, resilient messaging for staff, funders, and partners
• A practical worksheet and customizable message templates for immediate use

This is more than a risk management session—it’s an opportunity to build leadership confidence and organizational readiness in a rapidly evolving environment.

Registration is free for NAA members.

Register Now

Not a member? Join today to gain access to this and many other valuable leadership development opportunities.

Big impact doesn’t happen by accident — it starts with intention. If you want to prove your program’s success, it all comes down to what you track today. Miss the right data now, and measuring impact later becomes a challenge. Register for an on-demand webinar presented by Arly to learn exactly what to capture, so you have everything you need to tell a compelling success story when it matters most.

Backed by more than 30 years of research and direct experience, Arly is sharing the best evidence-based practices to help you turn data into powerful insights that showcase your program’s value.

You’ll walk away with practical strategies for:

• Collecting the right data to tell your program’s story

• Identifying meaningful metrics to measure success

• Increasing stakeholder buy-in with clear, compelling reporting

Watch the recorded webinar to learn how to turn data into powerful insights that showcase your program’s value to participants, funders, and community partners.

Watch Now!

Check out the newest episode of the Wallace Foundation’s A Hot Time for Summer Learning Podcast, featuring two districts, Oklahoma’s Eufaula Public Schools and California’s Mountain Empire Unified School District. Listen to hear how they have innovatively transformed and expanded high-quality summer learning opportunities amid the unique needs and context of their vibrant rural communities.

The discussion dives into the challenges rural districts and schools across the country face while planning engaging summer learning programs. District leaders Tanika Lane and Patrick Keeley share how their districts creatively approach and overcome limited funding, transportation challenges, attracting and retaining staff, access to community-based organizations, and more. 

Listen Here

While securing funding for afterschool programs has long been a challenge, today’s landscape is shifting more than ever. With changing priorities at the federal, state, and local levels, along with evolving private and philanthropic investments, afterschool providers must stay informed and proactive. Fortunately, strategic partners like the Afterschool Alliance offer tools to help programs navigate these shifts and find the funding they need.

Check out the updated Afterschool Funding Database from our strategic partners at the Afterschool Alliance. The Database lets you search for funding by state, grade level, and program area and filter by funding type (private or government). You can easily view application deadlines, eligibility requirements, and a brief description of each opportunity, with one click to access full details.

Visit the Alliance’s Funding page for more tools to help organize your fundraising strategy and make the most of available resources. Discover tips on fostering partnerships and sponsorships, access past forums and chats with funding experts, review case studies, and more.

Earlier this summer, Every Hours Counts released a new survey report, Powered By Youth Voice: Future Directions for Afterschool, capturing engagement from over one thousand young people in 321 afterschool programs from across the country. Supported by the Mott Foundation and co-created by Informed Change, Hamai Consulting, and youth researchers, this report reveals how young people envision the future of afterschool programs and their desire to be involved in the design and implementation.

A key finding of the report indicated that young people believe that afterschool programs improve their lives. Over 70% of those surveyed shared that the programs they participate in are safe, engaging, empowering, and inspiring. Young people feel a sense of belonging and comfort and as if they are respected by both adults and their peers. . They also have great ideas about how to make programs even better and want to be involved in reimagining the future of afterschool to ensure that youth voice and leadership are at the center of programs.

Additionally, three major calls to action emerged from the study:

• Program providers, intermediaries supporting afterschool and summer learning programs, and their partners can take initiative to center youth in the design and implementation of out-of-school time programs and systems.
•  Schools can partner with local afterschool programs that offer youth advocacy and leadership opportunities.
• State and local leaders can provide resources that build and sustain capacity to support youth leadership roles in afterschool programs.

Every Hour Counts recently released the insightful report Powered by Youth Voice: Future Directions for Afterschool, co-created with Informed Change, Hamai Consulting, and youth researchers, in collaboration with Youthprise. This comprehensive survey engaged 1,087 young participants from 321 afterschool programs nationwide. At the heart of this initiative were youth researchers who actively participated in virtual sessions to master research and evaluation, develop data collection tools, and analyze the findings.

The survey is a cornerstone of the Powered by Youth Voice (PxYV) initiative, which aims to highlight best practices for involving young people in the creation and implementation of programs that serve them. PxYV gathered 60 youth from organizations such as After School Matters in Chicago, The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Flint, Kalamazoo Youth Development Network, Nashville After Zone Alliance, Providence After School Alliance, and Prime Time Palm Beach County.

The report seeks to answers the following questions:

1. What do young people find meaningful about their current experiences in their afterschool programs?
2. What is missing from afterschool programs that youth would find meaningful?
3. How can afterschool programs be more meaningful in young people’s lives?

Read Powered by Youth Voice: Future Directions for Afterschool now!

This project, funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, underscores the importance of youth engagement and provides valuable insights for enhancing afterschool programs nationwide.

In the latest episode of the Wallace Foundation’s podcast, A Hot Time for Summer Learning , Newark Public School’s Matt Brewster and Tuscaloosa City School’s Andrew Macey join Nancy Gannon of FHI 360 to discuss their shift from traditional summer school models to engaging, evidence-based experiences that help students learn and build new interests and skills.

The episode explores each district’s unique approach to this shift, from how they adjusted program design and professional development to how they cultivated community and district buy-in. These approaches have translated to educators’ heightened interest in staffing summer learning programs, increased demand and enrollment from young people and their families, and impressive outcomes at both the individual student and school levels.

Click below to listen now!

Summer learning programs provide an excellent opportunity to offer enrichment, social-emotional learning, and belonging to students. But the sustainability of these programs can pose a big challenge for out of-school-time professionals and administrators.

A recent podcast episode from the Wallace Foundation delves into the strategies employed by Texas districts to sustain their summer learning programs. Lessons from the Lone Star State: How Districts in Texas Are Thinking About Summer Program Sustainability was moderated by BiNi Coleman. She serves as part of the Additional Days School Year (ADSY) facilitation team, a program that offers 30 additional days of instruction to mitigate pandemic-related learning loss and prevent summer slide for elementary school students. She sat down with leaders Kasie Roden of the Grand Prairie Independent School District and Lisa McNeill of Varnett Public Schools to talk about how they're thinking about sustaining planning and continuous improvement in the face of upcoming funding changes.

Listen to the full episode of Lessons from the Lone Star State: How Districts in Texas Are Thinking About Summer Program Sustainability.

Children need places to feel safe, achieve academically, and grow socially and emotionally. High-quality summer and afterschool learning programs (also known as out-of-school-time, or OST, programs) can provide these opportunities.

The Wallace Foundation’s guide, “Building, Sustaining and Improving: Using Federal Funds for Summer Learning and Afterschool,” identifies a broad variety of federal funding streams that can be used to support access to high-quality OST programs.

Click here to view the guide.

It is for program providers, school districts, summer and afterschool intermediaries, municipal government leaders, and state government leaders with an interest in developing, expanding, and sustaining robust OST programming. Among funding streams identified is the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Funds from this source can be used to cover OST program costs, plan for the future, and develop program infrastructure. The deadline for using these funds is 2024.

Are you ready to learn how to create out-of-this-world impact through your youth programs?  Join Arly’s upcoming webinar for your guide to crafting stellar afterschool activities using evidence-based practices.

This interactive webinar will be on May 2 at 1 p.m. EST. Even if you cannot join live, sign up to receive a recording soon after.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Here's a sneak peek of what awaits you:

• Discover the ingredients evidence shows are essential to create a high-quality youth programming experience.
• Understand what successful implementation of the essential ingredients looks like.
• Learn how to make your program measurable from the start to ensure you can go to infinity and beyond with your desired impact!

Arly’s mission is to empower youth programming providers like you with evidence-based strategies and solutions that positively impact the lives of the children you serve.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to elevate your activities and programs, and keep your participants shooting for the stars! Sign up now to reserve your spot for the webinar.

Simplify your afterschool program so you can focus on things like growth, empowering staff and youth enrichment!

Join EZChildTrack on Wednesday, April 24 for their webinar, Ease Operational Headaches with EZChildTrack Afterschool Management Software.

During this webinar, attendees will:

• Learn how afterschool management software can streamline operations and save time, without increasing costs.
•  See how EZChildTrack effectively tracks attendance, manages billing, communicates with parents, and more.
•  Experience a live demo, highlighting specific features and real-time insight.

Join to learn why 5,000+ afterschool programs use EZChildTrack. Proudly serving ELO programs.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

When:
Wednesday, April 24, 2024 | 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT

Presented by:
Jeffrey Thomas, President of ThomasKelly Software, providers of EZChildTrack and EZReports cloud-based afterschool and childcare management software

9 out of 10 tweens can be found on social media and gaming apps. Empower these middle schoolers to embrace their role as digital citizens by harnessing the essentials of online safety in everyday situations! Delve into essential Cyber Safety lessons with your young people through an all-new animated topic series and standards-aligned companion resources from My Digital Life, developed in partnership with Norton.

Irresponsible Behaviors Video Topic Series:

●      "Misinformation" explores the importance of verifying sources and trusting facts when sharing information online. Students will learn how to identify the signs of misinformation and avoid taking part in irresponsible online behaviors.

●      "Over-Sharer" reminds students to think twice about what information they share with the world via the internet by presenting examples of oversharing to inspire smart decision-making while surfing the web.

Watch this short, animated topic series!

Bring to life the topics covered in the Irresponsible Behaviors Video Topic Series and uncover ways that young people  can apply digital citizenship best practices to real-life situations using the standards-aligned activities and educator guide found on MyDigitalLife.DiscoveryEducation.com.

My Digital Life connects diverse classrooms and OST spaces to the keys of cyber security through standards-aligned resources that can be adapted to any learning environment. These resources are designed to teach students in grades 3–8 how to navigate their world and create connections using the fundamentals of digital citizenship and cyber safety.

Sign up to be notified of new content releases from My Digital Life!

Contributed by Natalie Gaines of Discovery Education

10 Strategies for Cultivating Emotional Intelligence

Out-of-School Time (OST) professionals must understand and develop their emotional intelligence (EQ) to effectively teach social-emotional skills to young people.

What is EQ and why is it so critical for OST professionals?

EQ is the capability of individuals to recognize their emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use this information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one's goals.

According to Quiroga Hopkins—who often cites Daniel Goleman's book, Emotional Intelligence—"Many of us understand the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) and supporting young people in developing their emotional intelligence. Because social and emotional skills are both taught and caught, we must continue to build our emotional intelligence as adults who work with kids.

Five Elements of Emotional Intelligence

What are they and what do they mean in terms of the work done in OST?

Before you can develop these skills in others you have to develop yourself.

"Things have shifted in our field and we're focusing more on social-emotional development for young people. But, we could be paying more attention to development of EQ in adults," says Quiroga Hopkins. Research shows that EQ is the strongest predictor of work performance, accounting for 58% success in all fields. "It's not as common to see top performers in the workplace who are not also high in emotional intelligence."

OST professionals must be more intentional about cultivating their EQ. These ten strategies can help:

To jump into action, take an EQ assessment (https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/assessing-your-emotional-intelligence-4-tools-we-love/) and identify your growth areas.

For more information in audio-visual format, visit SEL for Kids Starts with the Adults.