Youth 'creating, giving, doing' : Research report on youth-led granting in Nova Scotia

For the purposes of this report we will use the term youth-led granting and descriptively define it as “youth to youth granting as an expression of youth development that is purposeful and appreciative in its inclusion of youth as decision-makers, leaders and insightful contributors to the distribution of grants for youth-related initiatives”. [...] The stated goals of the project were to offer students an opportunity for hands-on experience planning and evaluating a youth focused grant process, to fund student initiatives, to offer youth ownership of the outcomes, and to provide a means of connecting students between three local schools in the area. [...] Three tri-school workshops for the selection team members were planned: one in November to outline the skills needed to move forward; the second in February to share actions, processes and decision-making; and the third for May 2009 to conduct evaluations and to develop recommendations for the Board of Directors of United Way. [...] Four levels of impact are identified: the youth making grant decisions, the convening organization, the programs and youth that receive the grants, and the communities that benefit from the funded projects. [...] The benefits seen among facilitating organizations include: → Learning to view the potential and ideas of youth as valuable in and of themselves → Seeing that granting a small amount of money to youth can make a big difference → Identifying some of the key barriers to youth engagement → Challenging organizational culture to improve practices of inclusion → Gaining relevance and credibility among y