Youth Voice in Funding

Issue:

Children

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Young people

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Grant-making practices

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Activities:

Information-sharing

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Peer learning

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Influencing policy or practice

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Location:

UK-wide

Stage:

Existing collaboration

Aims and activities

Aims and questions

Aims and activities

As a collaboration of funders, we need to become more efficient and effective in our ways of working, while being true to our principles of listening and sharing power with children and young people.

This group aims to embed a way of working to ensure children and young people’s voices are at the heart of future funding strategies for children and young people.

Youth Voice in Funding is a space where young people and funders come together:

To share best practise on embedding youth voice within funding and organisations
To run youth-led sessions on topics identified by young people as areas of need, e.g. youth employment/opportunities, mental health, climate, the value of youth work
To act as the ‘bridge’ between funders wishing to increase knowledge of specific topic areas and lead children and young people representatives, so that knowledge is shared across all funders in one space and one time
To build a ‘map’ of quality youth voice across locations and theme areas, in order to identify gaps and to maximise future funding opportunities as a collaborative
To celebrate the impact and power of youth voice and create a ripple effect to encourage other organisations to start their journeys in involving young people.

How to get involved

We would welcome other funders to join, and most importantly would like to hear any ideas for sessions from young people.

Please contact Joanne Rich at The National Lottery Community Fund.

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Who's involved

Who was involved

Current members are The National Lottery Community Fund (including their Youth Voice teams), BBC Children in Need, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Blagrave Trust.

Youth Voice in Funding was originally developed as part of a wider children and young people funder collaboration that also led to the creation of Empowering Local and Infrastructure Support in the Youth Sector. The chairs of these three funder collaborations regularly meet to co-ordinate their activities.