The Rising Foundation due November 1st, 2021

https://risingfoundation.org/index.php/grants/apply/

Jerry from SoFA volunteers thinking through it.

I’ve started to work on this!

Link to 2021 Rising Foundation Application

In this application, I propose that The Rising Foundation fund us to create a mass training program to equip young people and adult allies with the skills, resources, and community supports needed to contribute to our movement for youth-led collective impact. Mass training is a strategy to build movements that gives everyone who enters all the movement dna they need to become leaders in the movement at the very beginning. This mass training allows people to then take action in a decentralized way without needing to get permission. Mass trainings are intense, recommended 10-12 hours.

I’d LOVE everyone’s ideas on

  1. What topics might this training entail?
  2. How might we make this training fun, participatory, inspirational, and immediately actionable?
  3. What topics might this training NOT entail? We certainly can’t get through everything!

Here’s my current list:

  • A fun community-building activity that encourages people to get to know one another
  • An introduction to Youth Power Coalition’s vision, mission, values, and aims
  • An introduction to our strategy which is
    • leadership development to equip people with the skills to lead intergenerationally, advocating for ways to institutionalize youth decision-making power, and weaving a community of people and partners who support one another
    • diversity of projects tackling different parts of systems change from core beliefs to policies and practices
  • Explaining that we act in solidarity with movements that are aligned with our shared vision of all young people being equipped to thrive as happy, healthy, and impactful citizens of the world. This includes abolition, mutual aid, climate justice, etc.
  • An explanation of how we make decisions by consent within circles with defined membership, aims, and domains
    • How we stay organized logistically and have everyone included on invites
    • Terminology: circles, holding roles instead of is the role
    • How to set up norms: take space, make space
  • Training in how oppression shows up in movement spaces and having people reflect on their identities of both privilege and oppression so that they know how to be their full selves while being aware of how their identities can impact how they need to be in community with others
  • Exploitation. Many youth organizers become exploited by adults and the people they work with (like they end up being overworked, end up doing things they’re uncomfortable with, etc
). A point somewhere about avoiding exploitation in non-profit complexes and organized community work would help clarify many people’s goals, projects, and thoughts towards their careers and futures.
  • Practicing how to respond when people or circles or the movement itself acts in ways that are not aligned with our principles
  • Having people practice telling their own story of why they’re deciding to join the movement for youth-led collective impact
  • Getting people onto our internal communications platforms and having time for people to ask for tech help
  • Sharing what actions they can take immediately to take the next step in the movement, whether that’s donating or exploring a circle or doing a volunteer task
    • Maybe by hosting a co-creation section of the agenda where people can break out into small groups or pairs to work on one project in particular like collaborate on lowering the voting age or pitch something else to work on
  • Having a time for people to share needs and offers especially because so many people will be coming from organizations that are doing great work
  • Time to do a body check-in like stretching or dancing to music or breathing
  • Afterparty
    • Karaoke
    • Party in the Park

Information on what mass training is and why it’s important below.

Future advanced trainings will be things like

  • How to mobilize resources
  • How to do outreach partnerships
  • How to do external comms
  • How to do internal comms
  • How to be a lead, facilitator, and secretary

Finally, would anyone like to join me in doing the actual writing?

3 Likes

Ideas from @williamdiep

Structure

  • On timing: Prefer over multiple days (like 2 hours/day if online)
  • Provide food, water, snacks, and/or monetary incentives
  • Participants can earn a certificate
  • Record video and take notes so people can look back on it
  • Connect the training with YPC if they have any questions or potentially joining the organizing team

Content

  • How to set up norms: take space, make space
  • How to create an inclusive space
  • How to host meetings and where to host them
  • How we stay organized logistically and have everyone included on invites
  • Terminology: circles, holding roles instead of is the role
1 Like

This is incredibly late, and I’m not sure if I have the skill to help writing, but I have some ideas!

I think your outline is amazing but I think we should add in a small point somewhere about exploitation. Many youth organizers become exploited by adults and the people they work with (like they end up being overworked, end up doing things they’re uncomfortable with, etc
). A point somewhere about avoiding exploitation in non-profit complexes and organized community work would help clarify many people’s goals, projects, and thoughts towards their careers and futures. I think this might connect with:

Also, answering question 2, karaoke might be fun.

Yes! I edited my post with this content.

I also added a bullet point about maybe having an after-party with karaoke being one of the options. What do you think?

The Big News

We passed the first stage and have been invited to write a full grant application!!

:heart_eyes_cat:

Next steps are for us to incorporate their feedback and submit the full grant by November 1st. Read our official invitation letter.

Feedback

The Rising Foundation cannot fund political activities. They don’t want to open the can of worms when it comes to the nuances between advocacy (allowed for 501c3s) and lobbying (limited for 501c3s). So, can fund our training for youth leaders to decide how to apply for themselves, but cannot fund in support of specific political activities like lowing the voting age.
Current budget proposal has a large sum of money dedicated to the role of the program manager. Break that out into activities, estimated hours to complete those activities, and hourly rates instead. The Rising Foundation doesn’t fund salaries and operational costs but recognizes there are activities that people are doing as part of the project. Derive a number instead of throwing a number out.
Describe what occurs immediately and then how people are going to be supported long term. From Jeff: A lot of us have had workshops with epiphanies and then you go back to life. So, what’s the short-term epiphanies you want to see? But also, without support the epiphanies don’t translate into long-term actions. So, what’s the impact of the epiphany? With Sociocracy for example, “There’s another way of governance? who knew? and now we can practice it?” Emphasize YPC’s support infrastructure, its learning through doing. Do people go away with something tangible that they can integrate into their lives and carry forward to what they learn? The conversion rate of people who go through this + percentage of people that stay engaged? Availability of support groups?
Explain how are you going to do measurements. What’s the mechanism you’re going to use to assess the outcome? Work with organizations to show efficacy because other foundations want to see who’s funding and who believes in you. Recomend having pre- and post-surveys instead of just post-surveys because this method assesses impact.
Share who are the participants? The Rising Foundation has just created an Opportunity Fund which recognizes that impacted communities have not had the opportunities that others have. Funds will go to communities of color. Highlight this for YPC.
Explain how we’ll recruit participants.

Was most excited by the youth focus theme, that’s our future. How do we empower our youth? One grant The Rising Foundation has already made is a peacemaking program with youth, another is teaching sociocracy to children. Adults get long-winded and we have these mega meetings - how well does that work? Also, excited by fact that you’re working with communities of color. Have spent a lot of time looking at privilege and how it propagates. Need to redress that.

Bonus

  • Recommend that we read Democracy at Work: The Cure for Capitalism

Any resources on differentiating between what is and isn’t a political activity for non-profits? Would ADVOCATING for something that’s under the jurisdiction of city government (or the DOE) to change/make amendments/or pass legislation be considered political as a non-profit?

Watch this!

It’s official! We’re now a The Rising Foundation grantee!!

We’ll be tracking how we spend these resources on Open Collective and join #team:leadership-development work to collaborate on the program.