Paying It Forward spans three sections and draws from interviews with program leaders and the young people they have hired. It highlights how and why four partnering organizations in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)™ initiative have brought young people into paid staff positions, what the experience has been like for them and what they have gained from the opportunity.
Over the past decade, nonprofits offering youth development services have increasingly infused their programming with youth-centered practices and leadership opportunities. At the same time, multisite initiatives are bringing youth ambassadors together from across different programs.
Public and philanthropic funding sources are increasingly encouraging these efforts, with organizational leaders reporting contributions to both their program quality and the participants’ longer-term leadership development.
As these organizations realize how much young people can contribute — and want to contribute — some of them have taken this interest a step further: They are offering former program participants either newly created paid positions or existing roles in the organizations.
The first section describes what each young person is doing with and for their organization.
The second section identifies several key lessons from this early-stage work. It reviews how organizations benefit when hiring youth into professional roles that align to their passions and the importance of providing these young people with appropriate scaffolding and supports.
The publication concludes with a final section of emergent field-level questions worth addressing if the goal is to help these youth advance into higher-quality careers and organizations that sit at the intersection of youth and workforce development.
Paying It Forward poses three questions that should be answered to orient the field’s continued efforts to support youth and help them move into higher-quality employment opportunities. These questions are:
