Letter from our Executive Director, Sana Jafri

January 2015 to January 2025: A decade of service and learning during uncertain times.

This year I’m reflecting on a significant milestone: my 10-year anniversary with the Chicago Learning Exchange (CLX)–an intermediary of out-of-school (OST) organizations who are in service of young people in Chicago. It’s also my 5-year anniversary as Executive Director (ED). It’s been a wild ride with so many ups and downs, triumphs, challenges and profound experiences. When I began at CLX in 2015, I remember being so excited about the possibility of working in the OST space especially after being a classroom teacher.

CLX, formerly known as Hive Chicago, focused on connecting, funding, and encouraging the principles of “innovation” in the OST space. What truly drew me in wasn’t innovation for innovation's sake, but the belief that solutions already existed within our communities—solutions that could be scaled from one part of the city to others.

From 2015 to 2020, there were many transitions we experienced as an organization in focus and stewardship; however, the central thread that continued to drive our work forward was innovating with our incredible community of youth-development organizations. In that time CLX funded millions of dollars in collaborative projects and work that still continues today like Yollocalli Arts Reach Teen Council, Project Exploration’s STEM Westside Learning Center; Mikva Challenge’s education curriculum. We developed pioneering badging systems to recognize youth achievements in OST, were nationally recognized by the Obama administration, led citywide agendas on the importance of youth development with various Chicago mayors, invested in youth-development awards through the Brother Mike Awards, and much more.

Through it all I have been carried through this journey by the incredible people who work to build the world they want to see for Chicago youth, investing so much of themselves to support young people and change systems that don't serve us. There are too many to name, but if you’re reading this you have probably been part of the story.

What’s kept me going is that I believe in building the world we want to see versus accepting what we have. And, although Chicago is big, we often forget that it’s also often 1-degree of connection. And, although systems are hairy, “systems: they are made up of people.” People have carried me through this journey.

One of my biggest lessons is that people cannot pour from an empty cup. And too often in our sector we are asked to do that. I had to learn this lesson the hard way.

In 2020, I was a first-time Executive Director navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, while also welcoming my second child. I was determined to improve both our financial stability and programmatic impact. By the time I had been in the role for two years, we had achieved many of our goals—but I was also burned out, along with my team. For the first time, I experienced the overwhelming sense of mental exhaustion: an inability to focus, a lack of motivation, and the uncertainty of whether I could continue leading CLX.

Thankfully, I had amazing executive coaches and board members that said, “Sana, you need to stop. In order for CLX to be well, you have to be well.” They insisted that CLX didn’t have to do everything CLX was doing. Thank you! I took some time off, started therapy, and began to learn why I felt the need to do it all.

This experience of burnout was a turning point for me and CLX. We focused ourselves on only the core essential work, and I vowed to focus on building CLX’s culture so that I and our team could do our best not to experience burnout again. I knew I wanted to create a culture of wellness for me, the CLX team, and our broader community.

Powerfully and unexpectedly, what I found on that journey was that I wasn’t the only one experiencing burnout and looking for solutions.

Through CLX’s collective impact table on major barriers to youth accessing OST opportunities in Chicago, staff burnout and staff retention were among the top 3 priorities of youth development organizations named. Furthermore, national research from the Afterschool Alliance in 2024 backs this up: “81% of survey respondents cited staffing issues as a major concern, with 57% expressing extreme worry about the problem.”

Some of CLX’s core values are “continuous improvement”, “always learning,” “care”, and “community”. We are close to our community and respond. One of CLX’s recent interventions incorporates all those values and learnings. In a short-time, it’s had an amazing impact in addressing the crisis of staff wellness in our youth development sector. More specifically, based on learning from one of our network members, Chicago Youth Centers (CYC), CLX developed a research-backed 3-month executive leadership program in partnership with Paragon Optimal Performance.

The program served 9 Chicago-based youth development organizations and trained 17 executive leaders in self-regulation, coherence, and stress reduction techniques. As a result, some of these trained leaders are now acting as ambassadors within their organizations, embedding wellness, healing, and self-care practices into the culture through ongoing professional development.

This program has scaled research-backed best practice, and these organizations collectively serve 29,000 youth across Chicago. CLX is not a gate-keeper and is looking to go both deeper and wider with the next phase of this work. Stay tuned!

Along the way I read somewhere that in order to build something great, you have to be persistent, patient, and surround yourself with good people.

There will be days when you want to quit…and believe me, there were days like that. But, if you stop and enjoy the journey up the mountain, you will get to experience the splendor of the peaks and valleys. And, the journey is so much better when it’s with the community, especially the CLX team, board, and beloved CLX community. I couldn’t do it without you!

Thank you for allowing me to serve this community for 10 years. I hope you continue to join me, our amazing team, and our beloved community with CLX in charting the next phase of growth. If you know of a youth-development organization in Chicago that could join CLX, drop it in the comments below or donate to CLX today!

Although I don’t know what the next 10 years will hold for me, I know at this current moment, stress management and wellbeing are integral to sustaining the hard fight ahead for the next four years and beyond.

Lastly, I have always been a student of greatness and love Michael Jordan, the GOAT. Jordan reminds us that legacy is not just about individual greatness. It's also about lifting others up and creating lasting, positive change together. That lesson is ingrained in CLX's DNA and I hope will persist long after my tenure.

In service,

Sana