Mobilizing Young Leaders Across Washington State

Mobilizing Young Leaders Across Washington State

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is launching a new initiative that will invest up to $5 million in new and existing programs in Washington state that develop youth impact through leadership training, civic engagement, and/or youth organizing.

Youth are not just the future - they are paying attention now and eager to act, but not all young people have the resources, knowledge, skills, or support to participate and lead. We believe that supporting youth to act involves myriad components, from opportunities for youth to identify their purpose and passions to hands-on experiences that enable youth to apply critical thinking and use their voices to advocate for lasting change.

The Mobilizing Young Leaders Across WA State RFP supports new and existing programs in Washington State that support youth engagement and build youth power through leadership training, civic engagement, and/or youth organizing.

We are looking for programs with up to a three-year timeline that will achieve at least one of the following objectives:

• Support youth: advance models that support youth engagement as defined above
• Advance understanding: contribute knowledge, data, and insights on key elements including (but not limited to) supports that result in the greatest contribution to individual engagement and development, and community/contextual factors that accelerate or impede youth engagement, collaborative practices that generate stronger youth outcomes and organizational impact.
• Build youth power: positively affect the extent to which youth are viewed as critical perspectives and voices in informing decision-making, and increase the extent to which youth actively participate in decision-making.

We particularly encourage applications that include the following partner considerations:

• Local leadership – led by individuals residing in and with deep knowledge of the communities that the organization serves
• Community-based – demonstrates knowledge and understanding of local context, norms, and needs in their community
• Centered on youth voice-driven and informed by youth voice, experience, and expertise

We particularly encourage applications that include the following program design considerations:

• Youth informed and/or led – designed and/or led in partnership with youth
• ​Intergenerational – involves intentional relationship development and partnership across generations to share knowledge, culture, traditions, and skills
• Representation – engages youth historically underrepresented and underserved by youth programs, i.e. LGBTQ+, BIPOC, Indigenous
• Geographic area – engages youth in geographically underrepresented and underserved areas of Washington state, particularly outside of Seattle and Greater Puget Sound
• Topics – uses arts & culture and/or environmental science and conservation in their youth engagement approach

Program Elements

We will prioritize proposals that meet several (not necessarily all) of the following criteria:

• Demonstrated and articulated organization, programmatic, and/or community need
• Clarity on near- and longer-term objectives, including those that will enable success and future scaling to achieve greater impact
• Clear approach and readiness – proposals must specify the specific programmatic elements that, together, lead to stronger youth engagement
• Multi/cross-disciplinary approach leveraging arts and culture and/or environmental science and conservation as core programmatic elements
• Baseline data and/or plan for establishing baseline data – baseline data will be used to measure and understand impact – and definition of how the program/initiative will generate evidence of impact
• Collaboration and community partnership
• Sustainability – articulation of how the program and organization intends to meet resource needs (financial, human capital, community relationships, etc.) required to enable long-term success and viability

Funding Level

We will consider proposals for grant awards of up to $500,000 for each project, with a grant term of up to three years. Indirect costs may be included and will be considered for up to 10% of the total proposed project budget.

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

• U.S. registered tax-exempt 501c(3) organization and/or working under the fiscal sponsorship of a U.S. registered tax-exempt 501c(3) organization
• Organizations based outside Washington State are eligible to apply if the project/work is taking/will take place in Washington State
• ​Programs must be able to articulate impact and develop a measurement and learning plan
• ​Prior to any award of funding, organizations must review and agree to the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation Grantee Code of Conduct

Ineligibility

• Activities taking place outside of Washington State
• Applications from individual schools or individual school districts (applicant can be an organization working in partnership with a school(s) or school district(s)
• Research projects without connections to community-based programs
• Direct grants to individuals or scholarships
• Capital or endowment campaigns or requests
• Lobbying or direct political activities