A “venture” is a risky journey or undertaking. “To venture” is daring to do something or go somewhere that may be dangerous or unpleasant. So what is “Youth Venture?” It’s a positive, life-changing experience for students and adult volunteers alike that provides young people the chance to look at a problem, devise a solution, and see that idea come to life.
For example, a group of students from Jamaica Plain, MA started “Go Green Not Gangs,” a community gardening program to help engage other youth in a positive community activity. The students sold the garden’s fresh produce, providing low-cost healthy food in a neighborhood without such choices. Another Youth Venture, Bee the Change, is a campaign to increase awareness of how bees contribute to keeping produce prices affordable and to growing the bee population in an urban environment.
Inspired by Ashoka’s Youth Venture program, United Way’s Youth Venture is a civic engagement and entrepreneurship program that empowers young people to envision, create and see the impact of their own youth-led social enterprises. The initiative varies from one United Way to another and sometimes operates under a different name, but each program awards grants to middle and high-schoolers to develop and execute projects geared towards addressing pressing issues in their community. Participants must craft business plans and pitch them to a panel of volunteers before receiving funding. Then, with the help of adult volunteer mentors and allies, they launch their projects. For the duration of the venture, the mentors provide support and advice.
United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley (MA) has been growing its Youth Venture program for seven years, with more than 100 participants in 2014. In August 2015, the Boston-area United Way received a $250,000 grant from the Youth Opportunity Fund, part of Citi Foundation’s Pathways to Progress initiative, designed to support direct-service programs that empower urban youth ages 16-24. United Way will use the grant to expand Boston Youth Venture to enroll 300 youth participants. Other major companies are also involved in Youth Venture; e.g., Tyco runs fundraising campaigns among employees at more than 200 Tyco offices in the U.S and Canada to support Youth Venture programs in New York, California and Ohio.
United Way of Tompkins County in Ithaca, New York partners with Ithaca College and Cornell University Student United Ways to implement its Youth Venture program among high-schoolers. And United Way of the Greater Seacoast (NH) cosponsors the Granite Youth Film Festival, which premieres films about local social issues created by teens who have pitched their vision and created the films with support from adults in the local filmmaking industry.
Just as in the business world, not all of the ventures survive. Nurturing the visions and voices of youth, however, is a worthwhile investment. When it comes to United Ways and their Youth Venture volunteers, something ventured, something gained.