Engaging Young People in Your Community Organisation
One of the main aims of our Youth at the Centre programme is to support community organisations to improve and increase their engagement with children and young people. To support multi-purpose community organisations, we have published a toolkit that sets out eight simple steps that will help young people take on a bigger role in local projects and groups:
- Assessing your organisation
- Mapping and researching
- Planning and consultation
- Organised and safe
- Mutually beneficial
- Inclusive and diverse
- Monitoring and evaluation
- Empowering
The toolkit comes with a series of tools that enable organisations to take practical steps towards real youth participation. To date this publication has been ordered by over 800 organisations. It has just been updated and is available online for free for community organisations. To download your copy, click here.
Youth of Today Leadership Fund
The National Body for Youth Leadership (NBYL) was launched earlier this year to increase the quality, quantity and diversity of opportunities for young people as leaders of change in their communities.
As part of this work, the Young Foundation is managing the Youth of Today Leadership Fund, which over the next two years will be providing over £1 million of funding to support a wide range of grassroots third sector organisations working on youth leadership. The aim of the fund will be to help these organisations grow and reach more young people so that they can have as much social impact locally as possible.
Applicants will need to meet certain criteria that may change over the Fund’s two year lifecycle, but at the moment these include:
- Demonstrate social impact on young people aged 13-19;
- Take innovative and new approaches to youth leadership;
- Provide sustainable opportunities and services for young people;
- Reach out to more young people and share practice with other organisations; and
- Show skills, experience and passion to deliver this programme.
There are two grant programmes on offer. The smaller Scaling Up Fund will suit most of our members and provide key funding to develop any current or new youth leadership work in your organisation. We strongly advise community organisations to apply and to order a copy of our Engaging Young People in Your Community Organisation. This step by step guide with tools will help your organisation through the necessary steps to providing youth leadership opportunities in your organisation. Click here to order your copy (free to members).
Scaling Up
With up to 30 grants of between £5,000 and £20,000, the Scaling Up fund aims to help organisations take their existing project to the next level by: - Helping more young people take on leadership roles in their community.
- Create more opportunities for young people to influence the decisions affecting them.
- Raise the quality of youth leadership opportunities.
- Enable small organisations to grow.
The funders are looking for innovative project that are unlikely to find funding from other sources and the grant should be used to develop and expand youth leadership programmes including delivery costs, staff costs and small capital items (up to 20% of the grant we are awarding).
There are 5 funding rounds:
- 31 July 2009
- 20 November 2009
- 26 February 2010
- 31 May 2010
- 31 August 2010
Click here for the How to Apply page with guidance notes, an online eligibility check (after which you will be able to download your application form), and frequently asked questions.
Reaching Out
This fund will enable established third sector organisations with a proven track record of success to develop new and exciting projects. There will be eight grants of between £75,000 and £100,000 each year. The aim of the Reaching Out funding is to:
- Focus on social inclusion and promoting youth leadership.
- Raise the quality of youth leadership opportunities.
- Create more opportunities for young people to influence the decisions affecting them.
- Extend the organisation's reach to new groups in new areas.
This fund is suitable for organisations that work across lots of different areas of England and should be used to develop the organisation, rather than funding specific programmes. The deadline for the first round of funding is 20 November 2009. Click here for the link to this funding, but further details of the fund are not currently available and the application process does not open until Autumn 2009.
If you're unsure about anything contact fund@theyouthoftoday.org
