What we’ve learned from centring youth voice
Involving young people in our work is important to us at the Co-op Foundation. We started meaningful youth participation when we were developing our strategy in 2022. A group of almost 100 diverse young people helped us to understand what communities of the future looked like to them. This formed the vision for our strategy, ‘Building communities of the future together’.
Since then, we’ve continued to put youth voice at the heart of our work – how could we authentically build communities of the future, if not with young people?
In Autumn 2022, supported by experts in youth participation, HUDL Youth Development Agency, we set up a collective of 10 young people – our Future Communities Collective (FCC).
Learning quickly
It was a steep learning curve for our team. We moved too quickly, which resulted in compromises in how much young people could shape the fund we were designing. Our team also grappled with learning new skills and feeling confident with working alongside young people – something that was very different to our usual, quite traditional, grant making work.
However, we didn’t let these growing pains stop us. In September 2024, we welcomed an additional 10 FCC members. At this point, embedding youth participation into our work started to feel more natural and familiar. We’re incredibly lucky to have a really engaged, passionate and capable group of 18–25-year-olds who are working on a range of activities across our portfolio of work.
Here are some of the things we’ve learned about youth participation along the way…
Give time and space to working with young people
Our experience has shown us that giving time and space to working with young people ensures that they’re not just included but truly heard and trusted. This means committing budget and capacity across a whole team.
We set clear parameters for any work our FCC are involved in. That means being upfront about the role and influence they have, as well as involving our board of trustees from the start. This is especially important when sharing power with young people to make decisions – for example, when allocating our funding.
We worked hard to build mutual trust, and that only comes when you spend time together on shared activities. We found meeting face to face early on and setting a shared agenda for the work we’re doing together worked really well.
Upskilling young people is key
When we recruited new members of our collective a year ago, we had a blend of those who had experience in grant making, and those who brought other skills. So, being able to provide tailored support for our FCC is an important part of empowering them.
This support programme for our FCC was run by and with our amazing partners at HUDL Youth Development Agency and this has meant the depth of work we’ve been able to do with our latest fund has been much more comprehensive than when we started in 2022. We have co-designed an extensive induction that has included skills-based training and we’ve covered:
- Learning about how to design a Theory of Change
- Anti-racism training delivered by a member of our collective
- A listening session on neurodiversity led by a member of the FCC
- Power and privilege training
- Expert speakers and listening sessions with young people and adults with experience of the Justice System.
It’s important to us that we understand what skills and experience our collective have and that we make space and create opportunities for them to tell us what they need and want from us, too.
Act on what young people tell you, and recognise that time is precious
Be honest about any limitations to the work you’re doing with young people. If you’re working with a match funder with a different risk appetite, talk about it. We’ve found that it’s been ok to shift parameters on different pieces of work, as long as we’re clear from the outset.
Always be prepared to act on what young people tell you – otherwise, don’t involve them. Involvement without any action is disempowering and performative. Close the loop and show young people what impact they’ve had. Demonstrating the change that’s happened because of their time and energy is satisfying for everyone involved.
We always see young people’s time as a precious resource – there’s never enough of it to do everything we want to – but we make the most of every session we have together.
Finally, budget realistically – it can be costly to involve young people, but having visibility of this work in your budget. This shows a commitment to involving young people meaningfully (we’re delighted to have recently appointed a Youth Participation Lead, Amelia Ireland).
Why I’d encourage embedding youth participation into your work
From a funders’ perspective, it can be transformational to move away from traditional power structures that exist in funding.
Working with young people is invigorating, their diverse views and different perspectives bring renewed passion and energy to any grant making activity. Our experience of working with the FCC has been incredibly meaningful and decisions will inevitably be different as a result.
Young people advocating for themselves
The biggest learning is the importance of supporting young people to advocate for themselves and being brave enough to speak up and share any views. I’m so grateful that our FCC are comfortable enough with us to say what they think – although ultimately, they hold power for decision making and we do not!
Our team hold an important support role – being involved in sharing grant making knowledge, undertaking risk assessments and carrying out due diligence. These responsibilities must not get in the way of making funding decisions.
It may feel intimidating at the start, but I can wholeheartedly say it’s the most rewarding way of working. I wish I’d been given the opportunity to develop these critical thinking skills at a much earlier stage in my career.
We were lucky enough to have conversations with many funders who were already doing this work and were generous in taking the time to share their experiences with us.
So, we’re happy to set up a virtual cuppa with anyone who would like to speak to us This comes with a caveat that we are still learning!
We couldn’t have come this far without the support of HUDL, particularly Floree, Betty and Keji for their expertise, patience and limitless passion for this work 🩷.