ProsperUs is a collective that unites over 40 leading organizations from various sectors, including non-profit, government, healthcare, education, labour, and business, alongside residents of Windsor-Essex County.
Its primary mission is to eliminate the barriers youth face in the region, ensuring that every young person has the opportunities and support needed to succeed, from cradle to career. ProsperUs operates on a collective impact model, emphasizing the importance of working with partners and the community to achieve shared objectives.
At the heart of this initiative is the goal to transform Windsor-Essex County, enhancing outcomes for children and young people from birth through the completion of post-secondary education and their entry into the workforce.
ProsperUs’ vision is rooted in the belief that every child deserves success, irrespective of their background or neighbourhood in which they live. This ethos guided the development of the inaugural 2019 Neighbourhood Opportunity Index (NOI) report, “Coming Together – Building a Hopeful Future for Children and Youth in Windsor-Essex County.” By analyzing conditions across 55 neighbourhoods using twenty critical indicators, the report identified Downtown Windsor, West Windsor, and Leamington as needing the most support, laying the foundation for the equity-focused cradle-to-career strategy.
Building upon this framework, the 2024 NOI iteration deepens the analysis with various demographic, economic, educational, health, civic, and safety indicators, evaluating conditions in the same 55 neighbourhoods to develop a comprehensive opportunity score.
This updated analysis, incorporating data from 2019 to 2023, highlights the persistent needs within these communities, reiterating the importance of focusing on the priority areas – Downtown Windsor, West Windsor, and Leamington – initially identified.
The NOI’s success and uniqueness are due to ProsperUs’s innovative data-sharing agreements. These agreements reflect a deep level of trust and collaboration among partners, providing access to a vast pool of data unparalleled by any single organization. Such collaboration underscores the NOI’s distinctiveness and its role as a catalyst for transformative change, uniquely equipping ProsperUs to meet the evolving needs of Windsor-Essex’s youth.
By consistently updating the NOI with the latest data, ProsperUs demonstrates its commitment to driving meaningful, sustainable change within the community. The NOI serves as a dynamic tool in our approach to community engagement, allowing for adapting strategies to the changing needs of children and youth in Windsor-Essex. This dedication to data-driven insights ensures that ProsperUs’ interventions are equitable, focused, and effective by continually enhancing neighbourhood opportunities and solidifying its resolve to make Windsor-Essex a place where every young person can succeed.
