The Youth Engaged in Philanthropy (YEP) Program provides opportunities for youth to add their voice and action to important community issues. These issues are often those which are immediately impacting the greatest needs in our community, that are surrounded by a sense of urgency and importance, and in which youth input is clearly needed to more fully understand and address the issue. Actively addressing such community challenge generally requires a broad, collaborative effort to be successful.

In this program, students are taught how to recognize and how to seize opportunities for addressing community needs through grantmaking. The approach focuses on the students’ ability to be more engaged in decisions that impact youth and the community they live in. Students will proactively organize, plan and implement a course of action. This often requires a high degree of resourcefulness, ingenuity and collaboration with others.