As part of the Annual Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Family Conference in DC in October of this year, I attended a round-table post lunch led by the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing  titled “The State of the Field of Youth Organizing: 2010 Field Scan Analysis and Funding Strategies.” The 2010 report shed light on the growth of the field, areas of focus and trends. It engaged 160 organizations through an on-line survey complimented by focus groups and interviews with more than 80 organizations nationally. This is the second scan, with the last comprehensive one completed in 2006.

I choose this session as two of our clients Oakland Kids First and RYSE Youth Center actively engage in youth organizing as a means to address social justice as well as education equity respectively. In addition, First 5 Marin which graciously sponsored my registration is engaged in a community mobilizing and organizing effort for all children in Marin as part of a cross-sectoral collaborative, MarinKids which will likely engage young people as well. The Field Scan is rich with information describing the state of the field as well as models of community organizing.

Following are 5 take-aways from the presentation by Pillal and Torres-Fleming:

1. Social Justice-Youth organizing is becoming recognized as an important strategy for social justice as well as youth development.
2. Intersectionality-Young people see and experience the “isms” simultaneously and their efforts to address tend to be integrated.
3. Rise of Intergenerational Organizing-Young people and adult allies are working together and shaping organizing efforts as partners. This leads to a leadership pipeline as young people are mentored by adult allies and then positioned to assume their positions.
4. Integration of Youth Development Supports-Greater interest and commitment from youth organizing groups to tend to the health and well-being of each other and advocating for health, mental health and other supports.
5. Future of Youth Organizing-The future of youth organizing is an integration of physical health, college/career planning, academic support and mental/emotional health.

• jdcPartnerships completed the 2007-2010 evaluation report for the Latino Cancer Collaborative of Contra Costa/Spanish Women’s Cancer Initiative.
• We’ve expanded our work with the Latino Community Foundation to explore the contributions of its Children and Youth Initiative within the philanthropic sector.
• The jdcP team is designing and delivering a webinar, Evaluating for Greater Impact, through the Alliance for NonProfit Management to grantees of Citi on evaluation.
• jdcPartnerships completed and presented the First 5 Marin FY2009-2010 Annual Evaluation Report.
• We recently completed work evaluating the Integrated Health Psychology Training Program, Wright Institute.
• Read Jara’s posts from the Grantmaker’s for Children Youth and Families Annual Conference in DC in October on To What End.

jdcPartnerships is presenting at the American Public Health Association in Denver in November:

• Evaluative Inquiry and Web 2.0 Technology: Emerging praxis towards measuring social-justice based systems change (with RYSE)
• Community Health Workers, a key lever in the Sustainable Community System Change Model pushing forward a structural change approach (with First 5 Marin)