Hooray! Our annual report is here!

By Jayne O'Donnell and Brie Zeltner

July 15, 2025

Youthcast Media Group®

It’s become a regular part of new authors’ book marketing on social media: The hotly anticipated arrival — and opening — of the box with the first copies of their books. 

It was with no less excitement last week that the print versions of Youthcast Media Group’s first-ever annual report were received. None of us were there when they arrived — they went to the home of YMG Board Treasurer Dan D’Agostino, who was the first to encourage us to do an annual report and connected us with the printer. Otherwise, we would have filmed our own dramatic unboxing! 

YMG CEO and founder Jayne O'Donnell with a printed version of our 2024 annual report.

Here’s a link to the digital version of the 2024 YMG Annual Report. 

But what’s the big deal, you ask? Well, we’re in the business of writing and publishing, but seeing our students’ names and accomplishments in print, along with data on YMG’s results, will just never get old. And even though our virtual headquarters is in the DC area, where releasing reports is about the only industry, we have a good news story to tell that we think you’ll want to read. 

Here’s why: 

Those young people. There was only room for four quotes from current and former students, but the comments from these young people from Annandale, Va.,  and Hartford were a good cross-section of the sentiments from the 98 alumni who responded to our late 2024 survey. And they track with the 90%+ student satisfaction ratings for our programs. 

Their teachers. You’ll read feedback from educators at the schools where we work in person during the school year about YMG’s impact in their classrooms. They, our nonprofit partners who work with other schools, and teachers around the U.S. who are on our email list, all recommend us to the youth they work with. That helps our small but mighty team with recruiting. 

That data. We contracted with April Hirsh Urban, a nonprofit research evaluation specialist, who helped us clean, analyze and visualize all the data we’ve gathered from our students and programs. This was critical for our grant and program evaluations and – significantly– allowed us to see our achievements across programs and since our launch.

The design. Data is only as good as its presentation, so thank goodness we had our Assistant Manager of Social Media and Visuals, Sophie Beney, leading the design effort. We’re losing Sophie to Boston University in the fall, where she’ll be pursuing a graduate degree in graphic design. YMG was Sophie’s first job out of college after she volunteered during her undergraduate years, so we can only imagine what she’ll accomplish at her next job! 

And, finally, it’s a place where we can highlight our multi-talented board, proudest journalistic achievements and our impact on students. 

We’ll be mailing print copies of the report to some of our funders and select donors and would be happy to send one to you — or someone else you think should get one. (Especially if there might be sponsorship or partnership interest!) Just email Jayne at jodonnell@youthcastmediagroup.org with the name and address/es to send them to. 

Now, we need to start planning for the 2025 report - and the October 14, 2025 fundraiser in DC! Hope to see you there and to hear what you think of our first report.