These are great resources to keep in mind when trying to increase funding for your Venture!
Awards, Scholarships, and Contest Programs for Youth Action
Brower Youth Awards
The annual Brower Youth Awards honor six young people for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of environmental and social justice advocacy. Each winner is awarded $3,000 and brought to San Francisco for the award week and a back-country camping trip.
Youth in Action Awards
Youth in Action Awards honor 15 individuals (ten from the U.S. and five international) between the ages of 13 to 30 for their youth-initiated projects by awarding each winner $1,000.
The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes
The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes awards $2,000 to young people from diverse backgrounds who have organized and led an extraordinary service activity to benefit other people, animals, or the planet. Ask an adult who is not related to you and has solid knowledge of your project to nominate you. Nominees must be between the ages of eight and 18.
Do Something – Brick Awards
Founded in 1996, the Do Something BRICK Awards honor America’s top leaders age 18 and under in the areas of community building, health, and the environment. Each award includes $5,000 higher education scholarship, a $5,000 grant for continued community work, pro bono services, and other support and recognition. Winners are announced and honored at the annual BRICK Awards Gala in New York City.
Publications About Funding for Youth Action
Basic Guide to Nonprofit Financial Management
New nonprofit leaders and managers have to develop at least basic skills in financial management. This topic will help you understand basic practices in financial management, and build the basic systems and practices needed in a healthy business.
Youth Action Net Resource Guide
Youth Action Net Resource Guide is a growing source of funding opportunities, how-to-guides, and websites on fundraising for youth-led social change around the world.
Youth Action Net on Writing Proposals
When applying to foundations, corporations, organizations, or the government for funding, it’s essential to understand their particular interests, guidelines, and priorities. But in general, a good grant proposal communicates several basic things effectively. Read about the basic outline of a successful grant proposal.
Youth Action Net: Your Youth is Your Strength
It’s not easy being young and trying to raise money. Many times those with the resources don’t take young people seriously as changemakers, fundraisers, and leaders. This part of the toolbox offers suggestions on how to overcome these obstacles, and make youth an advantage in fundraising. Learn how to get the resources you need.
Finding Funding: A Beginner’s Guide to Foundation Research
“Finding Funding” fills an important void by making the grant-seeking process for progressive activists more accessible. The list of foundations included in “Finding Funding” highlights a portion of the vast resources available for grant seekers. “Finding Funding” provides some practical advice for beginning the grant-seeking and grant-writing process.
Programs that Fund Youth Action
Youth Noise
Youth Noise offers grants up to $1,000 to support youth-led projects designed to improve members’ communities or schools.
Youth Action Net
Youth Action Net provides information about fundraising, including how-to’s and more. YouthActionNet, a project of the International Youth Foundation, supports 18 to 24 year olds. Projects must have clear goals and potential for growth and replication.
Mix It Up Grants
The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Study Circles Resource Center accept applications for Mix It Up Grants. Grants of up to $250 are made to support youth-directed projects that focus on identifying, crossing and challenging social boundaries in schools and communities. Applicants should demonstrate youth leadership, collaborative community efforts and the potential for sustainable work. Individuals proposing youth-directed school or community projects are encouraged to apply.
The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)
The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement promotes research on the civic and political engagement of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25 and provides grants for research on civic engagement by young Americans. Although CIRCLE conducts and funds research, not practice, the projects that they support have practical implications for those who work to increase young people’s engagement in politics and civic life.
ChangeAmerica Foundation
The ChangeAmerica Foundation is a non-profit foundation devoted to youth and student organizations and their causes, through fundraising and media awareness.