Democratic Practice Program Hones its Scope
As the Fund's overall work has increasingly incorporated support for the involvement of youth in key issues, the board of trustees has approved a revision to the Democratic Practice program guidelines to wind down its program focus on youth organizing.
Recognizing the need to build and strengthen the field of youth organizing in the late 1990s, RBF staff and representatives of several other foundations, launched the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing to provide a vehicle for collaborative funding and capacity building and to encourage other funders to support youth organizing.
Since then, there have been significant developments in the field of youth organizing and the larger political and social context within which the field is evolving. Key youth organizing groups, including several Democratic Practice-U.S. program grantees, are better established and are adopting multigenerational strategies as they focus on specific issues, from climate change and environmental justice to job training to health care.
As the Democratic Practice program phases out its youth organizing strategy, other RBF programs carry forward a strong commitment to support youth as a necessary constituency in furthering program goals. Last year, there were 48 active grants across all programs except Democratic Practice, totaling $3.74 million, that either specifically supported youth or were awarded to youth-led organizations. This figure also excludes collaborative youth-focused grantmaking by the Democratic Practice and New York City programs.
This change will allow staff to focus its support on combating the corrupting influence of money in politics, fostering greater understanding of and appreciation for the role of the public sector, and promoting transparency, accountability, and investigative journalism in the United States.