In 2014, the Thrive Foundation for Youth embraced on a cohort strategy for grant making. They awarded general operating grants to 8 exemplary youth service providers operating in the out-of-school setting that had a paid-staff, caring adult at the center of their program delivery model. As a learning foundation, Thrive was interested in the common principles in their approach to youth development. Using the Principle-focused Evaluation method (Patton, 2015), we conducted a grounded theory analysis s of the public documents (and their LOI's) which yielded 9 principles that were shared among these 8 organizations. In depth interviews were conducted with 2 youth from each organization and were coded according to the 9 principles revealing a robust demonstration of each principle in all 8 organizations. This presentation is a demonstration of the process a foundation went through using a principle-focused approach to evaluate a cohort of grantees and the results of that investigation.