The Youth Leadership for Development Initiative

The Youth Leadership for Development Initiative (YLDI) was launched in September 1999 to study how young people benefit from involvement in civic activism and to discover new strategies and practices that youth development organizations can learn from the field of youth activism. The initiative was coordinated by the Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development and funded by the Ford Foundation.

The Ford Foundation funded twelve community organizations based in the United States to be part of the three-year learning collaborative. The Innovation Center managed the initiative, selected sites with the Ford Foundation, offered technical assistance, and convened learning events with grantees.

Grantees

The twelve organizations chosen to participate in YLDI represent a broad spectrum of youth constituencies, including African American, Latino and Latina, Native American, Asian Pacific American, low-income white suburban, young women, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning, faith-involved, and low-income Asian immigrant women and children. Their selection was based on several factors, including:

• A focus on addressing community and social issues;
• Having been established or run by young adults; and
• Recognition of the relationship among youth leadership development, civic activism, and positive youth development.

Goals

Through YLDI, the Innovation Center and the project participants hoped to:

• Build the capacity of YLDI participants to use civic activism as a component of their youth development work;
• Provide youth development practitioners with models and information on how to integrate civic activism into youth development programming;
• Stimulate research, practice, and policy related to the integration of civic activism and youth development.

Evaluation

A multi-year evaluation process (July 2001 - December 2003), conducted by Social Policy Research Associates (SPR), explored civic activism as an approach to youth development and assessed the needs and practices of civic activism organizations. The YLDI evaluation process was specifically designed to strengthen the youth development field by identifying and disseminating best practices and other lessons related to civic activism and youth development to help create positive community change.

Findings

The results of the Youth Leadership for Development Initiative offer a new vision for the field of youth development, civic engagement, and community activism. Based on the following lessons learned, the Innovation Center will create tool kits to share these practical tools with other community and youth development organizations:

• Civic activism is a powerful approach for reaching youth who are often not reached by conventional youth development programs.
• YLDI organizations made a positive contribution to young people’s development by providing support for young people at a rate comparable to or higher than traditional youth-serving organizations.
• Several civic activism practices, such as participating in group processes, building consensus, and subsuming personal interests and ideas to those of the collective, offer new models for working with young people.