Youth Innovation Fund for Youth-Directed Civic Action
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, sponsored by The National Service-Learning Partnership
http://www.service-learningpartnership.org

The W. K. Kellogg Foundation has awarded a signature 75th anniversary grant to the National Service-Learning Partnership, at the Academy for Educational Development, to establish a new Youth Innovation Fund for Youth-Directed Civic Action. The Youth Fund's primary purpose is to support young people, working in partnership with community institutions, to create innovations that address public issues and problems using a service-learning framework.

Freedom is the greatest virtue potentially afforded by a democracy, yet this virtue is fragile and can easily be diminished when individuals and institutions neglect the public sphere. To prevent such neglect, every generation must prepare the next for civic responsibility. Youth need support for acquiring skills for civic and political participation as well as opportunities to make their own distinctive contributions to the public issues they deem important.

For such purposes, no pedagogy is more promising than service-learning, an educational method that integrates civic (or community) action projects and intentional learning. Young people engaged in service-learning can use "multiple action pathways" for their civic action projects. These pathways range from providing direct service, to participating in institutional governance or grant-making roles, to social entrepreneurship, to organizing and political activism. Service-learning also offers youth opportunities to master the skills of democratic discourse and participation.

The new Youth Fund will select eight "model sites" across the country through a competitive Request for Proposal process. Each site, covering a geographic area contiguous with a city, county, municipality, or school district, will consist of a new or existing youth-led philanthropy board, working collaboratively with a new or existing local consortium of three or four organizations. Each youth board will make strategic grants to support innovative civic action projects chosen and carried out by young people between the ages of 12-19. Youth boards will also create local impact plans to sustain the long-term success of youth-directed civic action.

All aspects of the Youth Fund's design and implementation involve a wide range of young people, particularly those from traditionally under-represented communities. The Youth Fund will be guided by an Advisory Council of eight young people and seven adults representing an array of institutional affiliations and areas of experience.

The Youth Fund's RFP will be available on the Partnership's web site by April 24, 2003 and will be distributed through many networks. For further information, contact, Kenny Holdsman, Director of the Youth Innovation Fund, at kholdsma@aed.org or Jason Cuevas, Youth Liaison, at 212-367-4601.