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Youth in Philanthropy: A Brief History

Community foundations have generally been acknowledged as pioneers and leaders of youth philanthropy. A few milestones:

• The first youth philanthropy program was launched in 1985 by the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region (US).
• In 1987 California's Marin County Community Foundation partnered with the Marin County Youth Commission on a youth philanthropy and governance initiative.

• The Council of Michigan Foundations, with the support of the W.K.Kellogg Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, launched the Michigan Community Foundations Youth Project (MCFYP) in the late 1980s. This program was aimed at:

  • community foundation expansion, so that everyone in Michigan had access to community philanthropy
  • building the capacity of existing community foundations
  • involving young people in community foundations through the establishment of youth advisory committees and youth endowment funds

Extensive evaluation and dissemination of this successful program model has resulted in widespread replication throughout the US and Canada over the past 15 years.

A few years ago, the University of Indiana Center for Philanthropy's Annual Symposium focused on Youth in Philanthropy, bringing together over 200 scholars and practitioners from foundations and youth serving organizations across the US.

• Keynote addresses, panel presentations, small group discussions, conference papers and resource materials clearly demonstrated that interest in youth service and philanthropy continues to grow exponentially, and the number of programs has increased dramatically in the past ten years.

			Youth philanthropy fast facts* there are more than 500 separate youth grantmaking bodies in the US more than half of the US programs are within community foundations more than 50 of Canada's 155+ community foundations have YACs one Canadian school-based program with The Winnipeg Foundation includes more than 20 schools (and over 200 youth) youth philanthropy programs exist in Mexico, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Slovenia *as of September 2005

Different approaches

The concept of youth philanthropy now includes community, corporate and family foundation initiatives, school-based and church programs, local and national governments, as well as individual, business and other organization efforts, all with the common purpose of youth making granting decisions, and in many cases, also raising the funds to grant with.

It incorporates traditional organized philanthropy, as well as less traditional approaches that may involve social entrepreneurship and social justice work, or community leadership and service.

It may involve endowment funds or flow-through funds, fundraising activities or fund development with individual donors.

Regardless of the program, participants, or funding source, interest in the concept is increasing dramatically. Youth philanthropy is spreading around the world.

			Youth philanthropy overseas Community foundations in Poland launched an initiative to involve youth, called "The Empire of the Young" In Northern Ireland, community foundation youth grantmakers are providing support to projects addressing peace and reconciliation, and other social justice issues In the United Kingdom, "Youthbank" involves 14 to 24 year olds as grantmakers in over 30 locations, forming a national network of youth granting to youth In Australia, the Foundation for Young Australians has provided matching grants to support foundations throughout the country in their efforts to engage youth