National Youth Organizing Field Scan 2020

The Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing's (FCYO) is collecting information from youth organizing groups through a survey for a National 2020 Field Scan. FCYO will be celebrating our 20th anniversary in 2020, this is an opportunity to celebrate the impact young people of color and youth led organizations have made in social justice movements. 2020 will create the space for celebration and reflection while affording us an opportunity to put forth a bold vision for the next 20 years. We hope to bolster investment in young people as critical to any strategy for social transformation. A critical element of the multifaceted approach to our plan will be to produce a national field scan.

The last field scan FCYO did was in 2013. 2020 will give us a chance to update that and take a longer view on the outcomes of the last 20 years. The field scan will identify and offer analysis of trends, opportunities and challenges over 20 years and how the field has grown over that time. This will also include a deeper dive into how key issues that youth organize around have changed, and the role of young people in moving issues on a national scale.  These scans allow us to to improve our advocacy within philanthropy and increase resources for the great work that youth organizing groups do. In this time of decreased resources and increased need in the field as a whole, it is even more important that we understand the changes, innovations, and opportunities within the youth organizing field.

We welcome any youth organizing groups who would like to be included in the scan to take the survey, which should take anywhere from 15-30 minutes to fill out. The more information you can provide us, the better FCYO can continue to partner with and work alongside you. 

Please read the instructions for filling out the survey carefully. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask us! Email us at research@fcyo.org and someone on our team will respond shortly.

STEP  1: COMPLETE A MAP PROFILE

Please complete your organizational profile on the FCYO online mapping tool. If you do not already have a profile started, you will need to register. Most groups should already have a profile set up, but please double check to make sure your profile is complete and up-to-date. The information on your profile will be used to help inform the landscape assessments and will inform what areas the field scan may take a deeper analysis on, such as campaign issues, victories, organizational structure, etc. Additionally, outside of our research documents, FCYO also relies on these data heavily when identifying organizations for our own grant opportunities, as well as for funders we advise.

STEP  1: FILL OUT THE SURVEY

We are asking many of the same questions as we did in our previous scans, but have included additional questions to assess the current state of the youth organizing field. By this method, we expect to track trends in youth organizing over time, while also staying up to date on any progress you've made or new areas being explored.

Please note: If you are a California-based group that has already completed a survey recently for Dr. Veronica Terriquez of UCSC, do not fill out this survey. You should have received a link to a different survey in an email from Dr. Terriquez's team, please contact us if you need clarity.