Making Your Programs Last Longer Than the Money

1
Making Your Programs Last Longer Than the Money!

• Case Study Youth Visions for
• Stronger Neighborhoods

Amy Lesser Learn and Serve America November 8,
2004
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Youth Visions Introduction

• Multimedia training program that
• engages low-income youth in
• community asset mapping, video
• documentary making, and
• neighborhood advocacy so that
• youth realize their role in community
  problem-solving
• community members increase their perception of
  youth as vital assets to their neighborhoods

3
Youth Visions Sub-Grant Program

• 3-year small grant program (20K) designed to
  create
• a robust and flexible curriculum
• a sustainable user group
• 8 grantee organizations per year
• Diverse in geography and
• population served
• External evaluation process
• designed expressly for Youth Visions sites

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Purposeful Program Design

• Sub-grant Format ? ensures that stakeholders
  across the country are invested in the program
• Organizational Strength ? CTCNet can take
  advantage of our large member network to find
  grantees and disseminate final products and
  learnings
• Intranet and Evaluation ? mandates that project
  is rigorously field-tested so that it is more
  likely to be used after funding ends
• Final Product ? Youth Visions curriculum will be
  an enduring product
• Extranet and User Group ? intranet will gradually
  be improved over three years and made available
  for external use after funding period

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Develop a User Base

• Peer cohort developed each year
• Weekly conference calls with site leaders
• 1-2 repeat grantees in years 1 and 2
• that provide mentorship to new grantees
• Collaborative curriculum design and
• evaluation

• Conduct outreach to our member network
• Show youth videos at our annual conference
• Hire youth participants to videotape our
  conference and other events
• Keep a growing list of those interested in our
  products
• Ask our members to be grant reviewers

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Products that Last Beyond the Funding

• Youth Visions Curriculum
• Collecting best practices and case studies
• from each year
• Flexible curriculum allows for
• youth-directed activities
• Requires partnering with community
• groups and businesses
• Program Intranet ? Public Extranet
• Private intranet to rank curriculum exercises,
  chat with other youth, track progress, and
  provide feedback
• Migrating into independent, interactive public
  space for
• adding new curriculum ideas
• chatting with other users
• tracking progress in your program

7
Community Outreach
Sub-grantees are required to host workshops for
other youth-serving organizations in their cities
to

• Spread the skills and lessons learned by Youth
  Visions
• Encourage youth to be video trainers and
  demonstrate their neighborhood advocacy projects
• Promote partnerships between our grantees and
  other nearby youth-serving groups
• Gave sites the chance to present themselves as
  experts in this field

8
Resource Development

Fundraising for the next round starts the day you
receive your initial grant.

• Data from evaluation analyzed and formatted for
  future fundraising efforts
• Partnering with grantees for local renewal
  funding
• Create grant templates for user group
• Provide evaluation data to user group

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Contact Information

• www.ctcnet.org/youthvisions
• Amy Lesser, Director of Programs
• alesser_at_ctcnet.org
• Katrena Hanks, Youth Visions Program Manager
• khanks_at_ctcnet.org