We bridge funders and organizers to support youth organizing and its commitment to systemic change and social justice.
We provide direct support to youth organizing groups across the country through innovative programs.
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LEARN MOREFCYO helps build philanthropic, intellectual and organizational capital necessary to strengthen and grow youth organizing.
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he Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing, in collaboration with Communities for Just Schools Fund, held a Virtual Funder Brief: Youth Transforming School and Community Safety on MArch 21, 201a. This Virtual Funder Brief created the opportunity for Funders and Donors interested in the current conversations and actions regarding school community safety to learn more about youth-led grassroots efforts. The brief highlighted: The holistic movement to end violence and transform school and community safety led by young people of color Reflections on the walkouts and next steps for future actions and policy change How to center narratives and policies with a racial justice lens Victories and campaigns that are already in place to create safe, healthy and just schools and communities What Funders and Donors can do to support this young people in this moment
This webinar highlighted emerging research across various studies on how involvement in youth organizing contributes to the social-emotional and academic development of young people in powerful ways, while also promoting their civic and community engagement, particularly for young people living in low-income communities and communities of color. This new research is beginning to indicate the engaging young people in organizing to address issues in their communities is in fact one of the most effective ways to support their holistic development.
FCYO is creating a new fund to support young people organizing for safety and justice. This fund will focus on efforts that employ a racial justice lens and connect gun violence to other forms of systemic violence. It will look to connect young people across race and class to build unity and broader political power.
The Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing has launched The Youth for Safety and Justice Fund, a rapid response fund that will provide $1000-$10,000-dollar mini grants to youth led organizations to support young people organizing for safety and justice. The Fund will focus on efforts that employ a racial justice lens and connect gun violence to other forms of systemic violence. We hope to support the connection of young people across race and class to build unity and broader political power.
Across the country, youth organizers have scored important policy victories, such as advocating for greater access to college prep curricula and introducing restorative justice models to replace punitive school discipline policies. As the field of youth organizing expands, a growing body of research is illuminating our understanding of youth organizing and the myriad ways in which participation in organizing shapes the lives of young people. Emerging research shows that involvement in youth organizing contributes to the social-emotional and academic development of young people in powerful ways, while also promoting their civic and community engagement.
Throughout the history of social movements in the U.S. and around the world, young people have played critical leadership roles. Over the past several decades, the youth organizing sector has grown in strength and impact. Yet most of our groups still struggle to achieve our ultimate aim - the Power to transform our communities. On March 15, 218, FCYO invited youth organizers and their allies to a virtual forum on to discuss key considerations for building meaningful power in the U.S. Over the past several years FCYO has analyzed how the youth organizing field approaches power building. We believe the central challenges facing youth organizers are reflective of those faced by organizers across the country. At the heart of those challenges is this critical question: how do we build the kind of power that transforms the conditions of everyday life for our people?
On September 5, 2017, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, on behalf of the Trump Administration, announced an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA protects 800,000 immigrant youth from deportation and gives them the freedom to seek higher education, to work and to live their lives. The decision puts immigrant youth and their families at tremendous risk. Across the country, immigrant young people and their allies have been organizing to demand policies that defend basic human rights, a social movement that has garnered significant political power and that has captured the attention of the American public. This is a critical moment for all communities to demonstrate solidarity and demand justice for immigrant youth and their families. Learn how your organization can be part of the movement to defend immigrant rights.
Across the country, a growing number of states are legalizing marijuana and are collecting significant new tax revenues from the quickly growing and highly profitable marijuana industry. This webinar will explore how youth organizing groups can organize to influence marijuana policy and win new resources for justice reinvestment and for health and education supports for youth and young adults of color. The webinar will share examples from California of how organizing efforts are laying the groundwork for racial justice wins.
We unite with the Parkland youth who have called on the entire country to move beyond thoughts and prayers and move into meaningful action. And we urge those concerned with making progress to think beyond the narrow debate of gun control vs. gun rights. Yes, we do have a gun problem in this country. There are too many of them and they are way too easy to access. We also have a systemic racism problem in this country. Historically, in the aftermath of tragic shootings such as the one in Parkland, the result has been laws that subject us - youth of color- to even more violence. Bringing more police into our schools, putting guns into the hands of our teachers, creating more reasons to lock up black and brown people, these are false solutions that increase the level of harm experienced in our day to day lives. If we truly want to make our society safe for everyone, we need solutions that address systemic injustice, invest in our communities, and rebuild social institutions that center human connection and supportive relationships.
The Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing, in collaboration with Communities for Just Schools Fund, invites you to a Virtual Funder Brief: Youth Transforming School and Community Safety. This Virtual Funder Brief will create the opportunity for Funders and Donors interested in the current conversations and actions regarding school community safety to learn more about youth-led grassroots efforts.
FCYO's second National Youth CORE Convening\ took place November 16-19, 2017 in Albuquerque, NM!
Over the past several years FCYO has analyzed how the youth organizing field approaches power building. We believe the central challenges facing youth organizers are reflective of those faced by organizers across the country. At the heart of those challenges is this critical question: how do we build the kind of power that transforms the conditions of everyday life for our people? In this interactive session we will engage participants in a conversation about the strengths and limits of our current organizing models. We will offer assessments of the youth organizing field that we believe are relevant for all community organizing. We will also highlight the work of El Pueblo Inc. and Oakland Kids First, two groups who are thinking critically about how to take their power building to the next level. Most importantly, participants will have the opportunity to reflect with other organizers from around the country on their experiences of working to build power.
The Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO), our Host Committee (Generation Justice, La Plazita Institute, NM Dream Team, SouthWest Organizing Project, Tewa Women United, Young Women United), and our Convening Agenda Team - CAT (Gamechanger Networks, Mijente, Nollie Jenkins Family Center) are proud to announce that our second national Youth POWER convening, a program of FCYO's Youth Community Organizing Resource Exchange (Youth CORE), will take place November 16-19, 2017 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing invites Funders to join us on June 4th for a funder briefing focused on how young people today from across the South are building on long traditions of youth and intergenerational organizing. From the civil rights movement to current efforts for safe communities and just schools, young people from across the South have always been at the forefront of advocating for just and equitable communities. Building on this proud tradition, a new generation of Southern young people is organizing to improve conditions in their communities. FCYO, in collaboration with Grantmakers for Southern Progress, The Highlander Research and Education Center, Project South, The Southeastern Council of Foundations, Southern Echo, Inc., Southern Vision Alliance and The United Way of Greater Atlanta invite you to Atlanta, GA to learn about how how funders, youth leaders and communities are working together to advance young people as drivers of change.
This interactive webinar, held on November 14, 2018, brought together people from across the national youth organizing field to discuss major takeaways from the 2018 midterm elections. This exciting intergenerational panel offered analysis of the election, shared how their organizations are developing young people to lead electoral strategies, and answered questions from participants.
On July 9, 2018 FCYO held a special funder strategy session focused on young people of color leading movements for safety and justice. Attendees got to hear lessons learned from young people of color who have been on the forefront of this movement, connecting the symptoms of violence to root causes of injustice.
Join the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing on July 9th for a special funder strategy session focused on young people of color in moment of powerful opportunity. Funders have an opportunity to support this work at a tipping point - FCYO invites interested youth-focused funders and donors to a special peer learning and strategy space to develop a shared response.
NEW YORK – On the heels of the national school walkout day on April 20, more than 50 youth organizing groups today announced a series of actions to end gun violence, reduce police presence in schools and invest in school counselors, restorative justice and other solutions that improve school climate. The youth of color-led groups include Alliance for Educational Justice, GoodKids MadCity, Los Angeles Student Activist Coalition, Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, Philadelphia Student Union, Urban Youth Collaborative, VOYCE Project and YVOTE. For these groups, and a host of national partners such as Advancement Project, the Center for Popular Democracy and the Schott Foundation, the school walkout is a continuation of the deep organizing work happening in local communities to push back on proposals that further criminalize Black and Brown students, including undocumented immigrants.
FCYO is teaming up with The Alliance for Educational Justice, Mobilize the Immigrant Vote/YVote, Advancement Project National Office and Philadelphia Student Union to host Youth of Color Take Lead on Safety. We invite youth organizers and their partners to this virtual forum on April 12th from 2:00pm - 3:30pm EST to discuss strategies for advancing the leadership of youth of color within the current debate on gun violence and safety.
In this second webinar, FCYO and Global Action Project, a social justice youth media organization, lifted up impactful community-based transformative media organizing, in relation to campaigns that seek to expand the narrative framework around "sanctuary" and build local community defense infrastructure.
On May 9th, 2017 FCYO held the first of a two-part webinar series on Sanctuary and Transformative Media Organizing. The first webinar focuses on how youth organizers are defining sanctuary and organizing around it in cities, neighborhoods, and schools.
August 1 & 2 of 2017, FCYO and the California Endowment will host funders in Los Angeles to learn about how, youth leaders and communities across California are working together to advance young people as drivers of change. This event is the first in a series of briefings and learning sessions for regional and national youth funders as we develop new philanthropic strategies to support young people working together to improve their communities.
Published in 2004, OPS 5 analyzes the emergence and practice of youth organizing amidst California's bellwether politics and culture, and the immense geopolitical and cultural diversity of its subregions - Los Angeles, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Central Valley. OPS 5 was one of five installments that detailed the development of youth organizing in specific regions across the United States. Whether a “region” has a coherent identity is debatable. Still, this place-based dissection brings us closer to work that by definition is grounded in and led by communities.
From 2003-2006, the FCYO implemented and coordinated the Roots Initiative, a grantmaking and capacity-building project involving ten dynamic Youth Organizing groups from around the country. Overall, we hoped to develop, analyze and take action on information both macro and micro: macro considerations of the state of youth organizing practice, generally, as illustrated by the ten groups; and micro, focusing on ways to address specific capacity-building challenges faced by individual groups. This Toolkit provides, additionally, various suites of tools (in the form of templates, worksheets and exercises) that we hope are useful to organizations undertaking a broad range of organizational development efforts.
On November 15, 2016, the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO) held the tenth webinar as part of our Youth Community Organizing Resource Exchange (Youth CORE), a set of projects that seeks to build a more powerful and well-connected youth organizing field. This webinar is titled Invest/Divest:A Post Election Strategy to End Mass Incarceration and Fund Our Vision.
On September 29th, 2016 FCYO held the ninth Youth CORE webinar in partnership with the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT). This webinar featured panelists from the Philadelphia Student Union, Survivors Organizing for Liberation and Casa de Paz & Volleyball Internacional discussing reducing reliance on foundation funding and building independent financial power.
On August 30, 2016 FCYO held an information webinar on our programs launching in the 2016-2017 fiscal year, including our Moment to Movement Fund application process, Learning & Exchange Fund, Healthy Communities III, Capacity Building, Youth Organizing Landscape Map and more. View the recording here!
The National Youth Alliance for Boys and Men of Color has released a statement in the wake of recent murders of people of color across the country.
On June 23, 2016 FCYO held its 8th Youth CORE webinar as part of our Youth Community Organizing Resource Exchange (Youth CORE), a set of projects that seeks to build a more powerful and well-connected youth organizing field. This webinar examined how organizers are using digital tools - text messaging, social media, email and the web - to reach young people and their adult allies, bring them into a campaign and move them to action.
In March of 2016, FCYO held the seventh webinar as part of our Youth Community Organizing Resource Exchange (Youth CORE), a set of projects that seeks to build a more powerful and well-connected youth organizing field. This webinar focused on Strategies to Unlock Foundation Funding for Youth Organizing
Published in May, 2011, OPS 11 illustrates the power that youth organizing, specifically organizing for education reform, has on young people – from increasing self-efficacy and strengthening leadership capacity, to building collective power, academic motivation, and future commitment to civic engagement. Drawing on six years of data, OPS 11 expanded on OPS 10, “Building a Pipeline for Justice”, which underscored the importance of developing a pathway for young people to sustain the social justice movement.
In February of 2016, FCYO held the sixth webinar as part of our Youth Community Organizing Resource Exchange (Youth CORE), a set of projects that seeks to build a more powerful and well-connected youth organizing field. This webinar focused on Momentum Based Organizing: Turning Moments into Mass Movements.
In January of 2016, FCYO held the fifth webinar as part of our Youth Community Organizing Resource Exchange (Youth CORE), a set of projects that seeks to build a more powerful and well-connected youth organizing field. This webinar focused on Healing, Support, and Transformation: Supporting Young People's Needs While Organizing.
Released in 2015, the ReGenerations: Leadership Pipeline Toolkit provides curriculum and tools for groups interested in improving their work building the holistic development of young leaders at each stage of a social justice leadership pipeline. This toolkit has with a specific emphasis on supporting staff in facilitating young people’s transition in the final stage. We hope these tools will be an important resource in supporting the next generational of social justice leaders.
This toolkit, developed in partnership with the Community Resource Exchange (CRE) as part of our 2015 Financial Management Technical Assistance Project, provides a list of vetted websites with financial management resources that are easy to use and free trainings that can help staff build their skills at no cost.
Published in September 2004, OPS 6 describes the sociopolitical and historical backdrop of efforts by youth and their communities to build hope and local power for social change and justice in the South, and how local and regional dynamics shaped those organizing efforts. OPS 6 was one of five installments that detailed the development of youth organizing in specific regions across the United States. Whether a “region”has a coherent identity is debatable. Still, this place-based dissection brings us closer to work that by definition is grounded in and led by communities.
Check out this amazing highlight list from FCYO's 2015 National Youth CORE convening in Durham, NC, put together by our ally the Perrin Family Foundation.
February 18th at 1pm ET, the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO) will hold the first webinar as part of our new Youth Community Organizing Resource Exchange (Youth CORE), a set of projects that will seek to build a more powerful and well-connected youth organizing field over the next three years. This first in a series of field-wide webinars, one component of the Youth CORE projects, focuses on the ReGenerations: Leadership Pipeline Toolkit produced by FCYO and the Movement Strategy Center.
In December of 2015, FCYO held the fourth webinar as part of our Youth Community Organizing Resource Exchange (Youth CORE), a set of projects that seeks to build a more powerful and well-connected youth organizing field.On this webinar, FCYO shared some of our lessons learned about youth organizing and voter engagement and attendees heard from two organizations that have successfully integrated voter engagement into their work.
From 2012-2015, Global Action Project, Data Center and Research Action Design conducted a national research project—Media in Action: A Field Scan of Media & Youth Organizing in the U.S. The project sought to understand how youth organizers are using media to advance social justice and movement-building work throughout the United States.
Released in 2015 in partnership with Quadrant Metrics, LLC, Now or Never is a research report on the youth civic engagement ecosystem in the current political landscape. The report examines how civic engagement leaders can look to the field of youth organizing for promising new strategies to assist them in increasing voter participation, passing beneficial policies, affecting redistricting in 2021, and changing how the Millennial Generation thinks about values and policies for their lifetimes.
This webinar, held in December 2013, focused on our 2013 National Youth Organizing Field Scan report, the most comprehensive report on the state of the field of youth organizing since our last scan in 2010. FCYO and respondents from the youth organizing field and philanthropy discussed how the field has grown in maturity and power, but faces important challenges in continuing to push for social change and building the leadership of young people. Attendees discussed how funders committed to supporting this work can work together to address the financial challenges facing the field.
In 2013, FCYO released its last National Field Scan, the most comprehensive report on the field of youth organizing since its previous scan in 2010. The report documents important advances made by the field, identifies significant challenges facing youth organizers, offers detailed analysis of the trends, opportunities and challenges facing the field, and offers recommendations for funders.
The National Youth Alliance on Boys and Men of Color, in partnership with the Executive’s Alliance on Boys and Men of Color, launched the first annual Justice Reinvestment Community Award Fund to provide $500,000 in support for youth-led campaigns and rapid response on urgent issues impacting local communities across the country.