Venture Field: Youth Volunteer Service

Year of Venture Launch: 2006

Name: Michelle

Role in the Venture: YAN Team Leader

Venture Description: The Youth Action Network is working to build a web of youth supporting each other in taking action on issues that affect youth in Austin, TX. Austin youth can sign up to recieve a newsletter that informs them of opportunities in the community where they can make a difference. We have "YAN Socials" every month where the members have an opportunity to come speak their mind about everything from education to politics. Our plan is to build a strong, informed community of young people by working to improve Austin's society.

Venture Origin: From our experience at Garza High School here in Austin, the other core members and I had the opportunity to do community service work and, well, we took it! We found that we became respected by others, and the work was very rewarding. So, how can we get more youth to make a difference like we did? Youth Action Network!

Innovation: Looking at different organizations that try to get youth to do community service, we found that youth empowering other youth was much more effective. Not only that, we work with them with their ideas to make the community better. For example- we're helping some youth at a local high school to start a club that informs other youth about important events going on in the world.

Impact

Impact: So far we have about 150 youth in our database that receive our e-newsletter, and every week we get emails from other youth and adults asking about ways they can get involved and help out. It's really exciting how fast we're growing!

Engagement with the community: For upcoming YAN Socials- which are fairly new getting off the ground- we have 2 speakers lined up to come talk about youth driving under the influence, and conduct a focus group of sorts. And we've gotten various volunteers to help out some of our partner organizations' events.

Impact and engagement progress since launch: At first, we just had an e-newsletter that promoted different events in the community, but now we have, of course, the YAN Socials, and a merchandising line where we made t-shirts for the members and a planner that was put together by youth (sold at 1/2 price for members). Even though we're just starting out, we have differnt clubs in process that get youth out there and making a difference!

Impact and engagement strategy: Of course the clubs I mentioned are going to get youth informed about important issues in the world, and provide opportunities to do community service. We hope to print out the newsletter so we can hand it out to a more wide spread audience. As for the YAN Socials, we're going to start using different incentives to get youth to come (movie night, having it in a coffee house, etc).

Awards: Not any awards (yet!) but a few honorable mentions in various newsletters and magazines!

Budget

Amount of Youth Venture seed grant: $750

Money raised: $788 from merchandising (selling t-shirts, buttons, and planners) and about $50 from in-kind food donations

Creative ways of raising resources: As mentioned before, we have a shining star named Alice Geaccone who crafted the idea of raising money through t- shirts, buttons, and planners. She made a ton of stencils and spray painted about 100 shirts, and had YAN Members draw designs for each week in the planner.

Strategy

Expansion plan for next 6 months: We plan to go to 3 community events a month to promote YAN and recruit youth. We want to have a community service club in at least 2 schools. And we want to print out our newsletter and distribute it throughout the community.

Plans for sustaining the project: Our merchandising sales are steadily increasing, and so is our membership numbers. We already have youth who want to join the core YAN team and if any of us move on, there will always be youth to choose from. Our network of partners are growing each day as many want to be associated with us.

Vision for three years from now: We want a community service club in every high school in Austin, and at least 20 people in each club. We want an extensive newsletter on almost every street corner (free, of course) and 500 members. We want to have rallies about important issues concerning youth, twice a year and 20 people in the core YAN team to organize them. We want to see more youth excited about making a difference in Austin.

Project impact: Youth can now find out how easy it is to make a difference in Austin, and feel empowered to do more. And, of course, it makes life easier for those in need.

Youth Venture movement - what it means and how you can contribute: Well, there is one thing that I can think of that can promote YV, to support other YAN members in creating a project that YV can fund. We want to motivate members to go after different projects- and we want to help them succeed!

Author:
Michelle
United States