We’ve all heard “when you’ve seen one foundation, you’ve seen one foundation.” This familiar saying makes light of the many different ways foundations operate.  The same is true for how family foundations engage their next generation.  There is no “one size fits all” or magic bullet that ensures successful participation by younger family members.  And with so many models to choose from, how do you decide what’s right for your family foundation?

In 2006, I joined the Junior Board of the Frieda C. Fox Foundation and began learning about what it meant to be a philanthropist. At the time, it was almost unheard of for young people to be engaged in this way, and I remember craving interactions with people my age doing similar work. There weren’t resources to connect with others, and it was very easy to feel alone and isolated in this field.

A group of young people sit around a table, each with their own unique lived experiences--from incarceration to homelessness to living undocumented--and each filled with immense passion to change the world, block by block, person by person. At this table, the idea for the Brooklyn Youth Voice Awards was born. The Brooklyn Youth Voice Awards is a youth-led grantmaking program created in 2016 by young people and sponsored by Brooklyn Community Foundation. The Brooklyn Youth Voice Awards sees young people as central players in supporting youth-centered projects.

Here at the Jewish Teen Funders Network, we recognize that young people have the capacity to be changemakers and have the energy to make this process active and alive! So, whether your group is creating its mission statement, or going through piles of paperwork, here are some easy ways to ensure that your sessions are teen-friendly and energized.

The first and most important step in starting a youth grantmaking program is to ask as many questions as possible. These should be questions within your community as well as about the broader youth giving movement.

Communication is a valuable and helpful tool in many aspects of life, and philanthropy is not an exception - communication is crucial and vital to the success of a program. Philanthropy requires communication between donors, foundations, and nonprofits. Feedback from those directly affected by funded projects helps grantmaking programs to grow and improve, and gives donors more information and data. Relationships often grow from these conversations, which then allow for even easier and more open communication. When donors remain consistent, these relationships can span decades. However, building relationships can be hard with youth programs, because most have specific age limits for participating youth, creating a constant cycle of new members. If members are only in a program for three or five years, how can we keep board members, donors, and grantees building longstanding relationships and feeling connected to a program? And how can members keep passing down knowledge to new members after they have left?

As youth philanthropists, we have to make sure that our peers know about our grant opportunities to reach their goals. Of course, advertising is not easy unless you can afford a Superbowl commercial, but here are some innovative ideas about how to broadcast grant opportunities.

Being busy isn’t a reason to avoid connecting with other youth philanthropists—it’s a reason to do it.  We’re Kylie and Sarah, and we’re both members of the Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation Junior Board and the Youth Philanthropy Connect (YPC) Leadership Team.  We’ve been getting to know lots of other youth philanthropists across the U.S. for over three years through Youth Philanthropy Connect conferences and the YPC Leadership Team, where we have met lots of other youth that are weaving the web that is our network. Here are the top 5 benefits we have found from staying connected to other youth philanthropists.

It can be a challenge to effectively communicate your story – to demonstrate your impact, garner funds, and to simply explain philanthropy to your peers. In the webinar recording below, Iowa Council of Foundations President Kari McCann and youth philanthropists Michael Banwarth and Leah Freihoefer offer some advice on how best to share the story of your giving and how to leverage these stories through your philanthropy network.

In 2000, my family’s foundation (Surdna) established the Andrus Family Philanthropy Program to engage future generations in our family in formalized philanthropy. In addition, we created two youth programs, targeting 13-17 and 18-24 year olds, respectively (learn more here!). For years, these youth programs were designed and run by adults with expertise in the field, helping young people define what they cared about and find their identity in philanthropy. I have come across similar youth initiatives where adults get together to develop all aspects of the program, then present it to the young people to experience and implement. If the past sixteen years has taught me anything about youth philanthropy it is this: don’t take “youth” out of the development and creation of a youth philanthropy program.