Impact begins upstream
Interplay™ is decision intelligence for leaders making high-stakes choices in complex human systems.
Interplay™ helps leaders understand the long-term human consequences of their decisions—as experienced by students, educators, and community members—before those decisions become policy, funding commitments, or institutional norms that are difficult to reverse.
It is built for environments where tradeoffs are unavoidable, outcomes unfold over time, and accountability is real.
The challenge Interplay solves
Many decisions that shape young people’s lives are made with narrow outcome metrics, fragmented evaluations, program-level data that fails to reflect lived experience, pressure for quick, visible results.
Even well-intended investments can improve one outcome while quietly weakening another, fund activity without strengthening underlying conditions, or produce consequences that only become visible years later.
Interplay exists to help leaders see more clearly before they act.
The Growth Index™ score
At the core of Interplay is the Growth Index™ score—a patent-pending indicator of how well an organization or system is positioned to create meaningful, durable impact for youth.
Rather than measuring activity or short-term performance alone, the Growth Index evaluates a small set of foundational conditions that research shows must be in place for youth-serving efforts to succeed.
These conditions reflect whether systems are structurally prepared to support young people—not just whether programs exist.
We evaluate 4 key conditions for success
The Growth Index™ assesses how effectively an organization supports youth across four interrelated conditions:
Access
The reliability and reach of pathways to support and opportunity
Trust
The extent to which relationships, culture, and systems are experienced as credible and safe
Guidance
The consistency and quality of direction, mentorship, and developmental support
Care
The degree to which well-being, dignity, and whole-person needs are meaningfully supportedWhy this matters right now
When these conditions are strong and aligned, investments are far more likely to translate into lasting impact.
When one or more are weak, even well-funded and well-intentioned initiatives often struggle—without a clear explanation why.
The Growth Index™ helps leaders see where systems are positioned for success and where underlying conditions may limit results.
What Interplay makes possible
Interplay makes it possible for leaders to understand the whole-person impact of their choices—not just immediate outputs or short-term results. It brings tradeoffs and tensions into view, allows options to be compared without stripping away context, and surfaces potential unintended consequences before decisions become difficult to reverse.
Interplay does not prescribe answers or automate judgment. It exists to support clearer, more defensible decision-making in complex environments where resources are limited, values must be balanced, and long-term consequences matter.
Built to work with what you have
Interplay and the Growth Index are built to integrate with existing programs, initiatives, and data sources, not replace them.
The platform:
Adapts to different organizational missions and contexts
Allows customization based on local priorities and populations
Tracks change over time as conditions evolve
Provides visibility into real-time impact as strategies are implemented
This makes it possible to understand what is actually working—where, and why—without starting from scratch
Interplay empowers morally ambitious leaders
Interplay is designed for leaders who allocate resources and shape systems affecting young people, including:
Foundations and philanthropic organizations
Cities and public institutions
Universities and youth-serving systems
It is especially useful where decisions must be explained—to boards, funders, communities, and future leaders.