Foundation Funded Initiative Uses Youth-Adult Partnerships to Create Positive Change

When the W.K. Kellogg Foundation wanted to explore connections between youth-adult partnership and collective leadership, they tapped the Innovation Center to help guide the process. This exploration was part of a major foundation initiative-- Kellogg Leadership for Community Change (KLCC). KLCC draws together teams of young people and adults to address key issues in their communities. A group in Benton Harbor, MI, focused on improving education while the group in Chelsea MA looked into immigration issues. The Lummi tribe in Bellingham, Washington started the reservation’s first youth center. The Innovation Center helped Kellogg to design the initiative goals and strategies, recruit and pick community partners, provide training and technical assistance to sites, and conduct national peer gatherings of community members. The Innovation Center is also documenting the best practices and lessons learned from sites and disseminating them to key audiences. A new tool kit and video documentary bring the lessons to life and offer practical tips for replication. An on-line ‘knowledge well’ where grassroots and national leaders can find and share tools, stories and ideas, is a resource for the entire field. Now at the three-year point, the five sites are achieving remarkable outcomes in the areas of immigration, dropout prevention, youth voice, community safety, and school-community relations.