Pizza, cookies and sodas fortify the teen board members of a grantmaking organization in Michigan. Tonight they’re reviewing proposals. One nonprofit organization’s request for video equipment has them debating—does it really cost this much? Let’s find out. So they dispatch several members on a fact-finding mission to the nearby Wal-Mart.

If their approach to grantmaking is a bit unorthodox, so is the very idea of entrusting young people with money to give away. But 1,500 kids in Michigan’s 86 Youth Advisory Committees (YACs) are proving they can be serious grantmakers—conducting community needs assessments, grasping complex concepts, tackling tough problems, studiously reviewing grant proposals, interrogating grant applicants and bird-dogging projects to hold recipients to their promises. They oversee nearly $48 million in permanently endowed youth funds provided by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, matched by more than $100 million raised locally.

Each committee has about 20 members, most of high school age, but some in junior high, with one adult advisor. The final decision on awarding grants is made by an adult board, which nearly always agrees with the committee’s recommendations.

Why Involve Teens?
Youth Advisory Committees began as a pilot program of the Michigan Council on Foundations Youth Project in 1988 to create within communities permanent youth services funds, and develop future community leaders and non-profit board members.

But grooming young people for the future is just part of the program’s power. The achievements of these committees have been eye-opening, demonstrating that what youth services programs lacked was youth. “Kids are experts in their own lives,” says Joel Orosz, distinguished professor of philanthropic studies at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Formerly with the Kellogg Foundation, he was instrumental in developing the youth project. Now many youth services organizations enlist Youth Advisory Committees as resources. For example, the Women’s Resource Center asked them to help get their date rape prevention program to high school girls.

The fact that non-profit agencies have begun inviting Youth Advisory Committee members to join their boards demonstrates that they value young people’s input. In 1998 several Youth Advisory Committee members drafted and successfully lobbied for a law lowering the voting age for non-profit board members from 18 to 16.

Another reason to engage kids in serious philanthropy is that they thrive on doing meaningful work. “We’ve marginalized kids in our society,” Orosz says. “Kids tell me that being in YAC is the first time they’ve been asked to do anything that matters. Give them meaningful work, not ‘make work,’ and they’ll dig in. It always stuns adults to see how seriously kids take this opportunity, how hard they work and how remarkably good at it they become.”

A World Expanded
Nipa Begum, 17, is chair of the Southeastern Michigan Youth Advisory Committee. Nipa bubbles with enthusiasm, but she’s very serious about her work. She’s been trained to look at grant applications with a critical eye and puts more stock in site visits and interviews than in proposals.

Nipa, whose nationality is Bengali, was about three years old when her family came to Detroit from Bangladesh. “Before I joined YAC, I was a very shy person,” she says. “I just sat at the meetings and listened. Now I’m able to get up in front of people and do presentations.” In fact, she thrives on doing presentations, like the one she did recently in Pennsylvania where the committees are expanding. She’s considering a major in public speaking.

Nipa’s favorite projects involved funding teen programs aiding kids with cancer and hospice patients. “YAC is making me aware of needs in the community, especially when we do site visits,” she says. “Before, all I did was go to school and work, and I didn’t know what was happening around me.”

The Southeastern Michigan Youth Advisory Committee covers seven counties, both urban and suburban, so Nipa’s world has expanded. “I love the exchange, seeing how people do things differently, having friends in seven counties.”

She’s also discovered that making a difference in her community requires working with adults. “I was always polite and respectful, but I didn’t understand their point of view,” she says. “But we have to work to have a relationship and understand one another.”

Learning From the YAC Model
Communities outside Michigan are warming to the idea that young people belong on the planning end, not just the receiving end, of services. Today there are more than 300 youth grantmaking programs in the United States, many based on the Youth Advisory Committee model. Some of the key governing principles are as follows:

• Entrust young people with decision-making. Youth Advisory Committees were initially designed with an equal number of adults and high school students. Not surprisingly, the adults wouldn’t surrender control. Orosz relates an event that was pivotal in the project’s early development. “The kids in one YAC gave it three weeks, then went to the man who was then executive director and said, ‘We quit. Every idea we put forward, they say they tried back in ’52 and it didn’t work.’” The executive director fired the adults and kept the kids. Now kids are in charge with help from one adult advisor.
• Look beyond the recognized leaders. Originally Youth Advisory Committees tapped the kids on student council and honor society for membership. Many were too busy to make these committees a priority. Besides, they already enjoyed leadership training opportunities. So recruitment began to target those with potential and made membership intentionally diverse beyond the usual race, ethnic, socio-economic and gender definitions. There’s a place at the table for the teen mother, the kid on the verge of dropping out of school and other stakeholders, too.
• Success is more about the model than the money. “YACs have been started with as little as $30,000—a $10,000 challenge grant from the Kellogg Foundation and $20,000 from the community,” says Orosz. Regardless of the dollar amount, they’re all learning the ropes—consensus building, meeting skills, conducting needs assessments, etc. They must develop requests for proposals (RFPs), establish selection criteria, review grant applications, interview applicants, make site visits and award grants. They follow up as well to ensure that grant monies are used as intended.

The Future
Will the lessons of Youth Advisory Committees carry over into adult life and have the profound effect on communities that advocates hope for? Nipa Begum is certain that she’ll always do community service. Many committee alums already serve on non-profit boards, and it is hoped that others take the spirit of service into their business and social lives.

Michigan bears watching for another reason. It could be the epicenter of a paradigm shift: seeing young people not as a problem to be solved but as valuable contributors to society.

Youth Advisory Committee Projects
YACs support a wide range of projects:
Elementary school butterfly garden Reading programs Dance scholarships for low-income children “Out of the Locker Room Program” to encourage boys to deal with issues of sexuality Safe Haven project for at-risk youth that involved a collaboration of two cities, two school districts and several youth services agencies	Court in the Classroom, bringing a district court judge and real drunk driving cases to a high school just before prom night Pregnancy prevention program for junior high students Latchkey Plus Program providing high school mentors for elementary school kids

Resources:

• For information on starting a Youth Advisory Committee, see the Michigan Community Foundations Youth Project Web site.
• Visit Connect for Kids Topic Pages on community building and volunteering and mentoring.
  

Talk Back

If you’ve got comments or questions about this story, we’d like to hear them. Send your response to Susan Phillips.

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Leanna Skarnulis is a freelance writer in Omaha, Nebraska.