Best practices for youth grantmaking programs http://www.youthgrantmakers.org/BestPractices_overview.html

article about Youth serving on boards

http://www.youthgrantmakers.org/Resources_legislative.html

• Forty-four percent of adults volunteer and two-thirds of these volunteers began volunteering their time when they were young.
• Adults who began volunteering as youth are twice as likely to volunteer as those who did not volunteer when they were younger.
• High school volunteering recently reached the highest levels in the past 50 years.
• In every income and age group, those who volunteered as youth give and volunteer more than those who did not.
• Those who volunteered as youth and whose parents volunteered became the most generous adults in giving time.

Survey of the same youth eight times during a 10-year period to understand the effects that serving as youth grantmakers in the Michigan Community Foundations’ Youth Project (MCFYP) had on their volunteering, giving and leadership activities as young adults, with funding by The W.K. Kellogg Foundation to Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF).

"The concept of positive youth development-seeing young people as resources and assets, not problems and victims-is the critical force behind the idea of youth as decision-makers," according to Steve Culbertson, President and CEO of Youth Service America.

"Involving youth in philanthropy is another example of the Kauffman Foundation's cutting-edge initiatives," Harris Wofford said in comments at the awards luncheon. "By using a youth grant-making board, with full decision-making responsibilities, the Foundation is developing the present and future generation of philanthropists and community leaders," Wofford added.

The Corporation for National and Community Service conducted the Youth Volunteering and Civic Engagement Survey in early 2005, the first major national study of volunteering by teenagers in more than a decade. The brief explores the state of youth volunteering and the connections between youth volunteering and the primary social institutions to which teenagers are exposed – family, schools, and religious congregation.

Among other findings, youth volunteering is robust – with 55 percent of youth participating in volunteer activities each year – and that the level of their volunteer commitment is directly related to the nature of the social institutions with which they interact.

• Full Report
• Fact Sheet on “The Role of Social Institutions in Teen Volunteering"
• Fact Sheet on “Service-Learning and School-Based Service"

Learning to Give is an innovative educational initiative seeking to maintain and enhance a civil society. Learning to Give offers K-12 lesson plans, activities, and resources to educate youth about the power of philanthropy (sharing time, talent and treasure). Young people can make a difference in their school, their community and their world!

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