In February 1998, the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation established the funding program "Combating Youth Unemployment" to mark its 30th anniversary. The board decided to allocate 30 million DM (15.3 million EUR) for this purpose. Despite the considerable amount, the board members were aware that the funds provided were limited in light of the magnitude of the youth unemployment problem. Therefore, the foundation focused its project selection regionally on the city of Essen and the Ruhr area. The goal was and is to quickly seize good ideas and enable their realization in a non-bureaucratic manner; to provide support where a project promises tangible help to young people; to promote exemplary, replicable projects; and to give a chance to new, yet untested approaches to combating youth unemployment. A particular emphasis is placed on initiatives that aim to help young people successfully transition from school to work. After ten years of its program, the foundation requested the Institute for Work and Qualification at the University of Duisburg-Essen to hold a scientific conference on this topic. I was very pleased with the great interest shown, as it underscores the ongoing relevance of the issue. Individual measures funded by the foundation for the prevention of youth unemployment were presented and contextualized within the developments in the vocational education system in Germany. I hope that the contributions from academia, politics, and practice will provide impulses for further successful pathways out of youth unemployment.