We're thrilled to be working together with your organization to enable youth-led community engagement. To date, we've awarded more than 7,000 grants to youth 15-30 from coast to coast to coast. Here's a welcome video from our Executive Director Jennifer Corriero:

In 2018, the Federal Government launched the Canada Service Corps, (CSC) an initiative that encourages participation in meaningful volunteer service projects and empowers young Canadians to have positive impacts in communities across Canada.

As part of the CSC Initiative, TakingITGlobal launched the #RisingYouth Community Service Grants offering youth opportunities to shape our country and make an impact within their communities by applying for microgrants to turn their ideas into action. These project ideas are supported by a network of over 100 organizational partners nationwide.

As the National Partnership and Outreach Manager for #RisingYouth, I am aware of the immense and diverse roles that community-based organizations coast to coast play in the daily lives of youth facing multiple barriers. Many of these organizations and agencies are embedded within the fabric of their communities and work tirelessly to render safer and healthier spaces for youth. They offer critical services, resources, training, programming and mentorship to contribute to a movement that centers equity and youth leadership. We are proud to partner with these organizations.

Our partnership model is rooted in the belief that #RisingYouth can elevate existing organizational mandates by leveraging our microgrants to put youth ideas into action. We aim to foster relationships through trust, accountability, communication and by developing a shared vision for a collaboration that respects the goals, values, capacity and strengths of each organizational partner.

Our Awareness Partners primarily promote #RisingYouth microgrants by distributing resources, promoting regular grant writing workshops and/or collaborating on exposure events to increase awareness of the grants. Impact Partners also promote the program, with additional emphasis on providing mentorship, guidance and hands-on support to #RisingYouth grantees at every stage of the process: from ideation to writing their grant; planning and organizing the logistics of their project; executing the project, and submitting final reports.

#RisingYouth has excelled because young Canadians are committed to their communities, inspired to act, and seeking meaningful opportunities to contribute to change. To date, we have distributed over $4 million to thousands of young and emerging leaders with the support of our partners. We are proud to continue to align ourselves with a network of local, regional and national organizations dedicated to supporting the leadership of youth nationwide.

Sincerely,

Melissa Yaw
Program Manager
#RisingYouth