Ashley Deutser has always felt passionate about empowering youth. Two years ago when Youth Philanthropy Connect partnered with the Greater Houston Community Foundation for its Southwest Gathering, Deutser was part of a group of youth philanthropists from Houston who helped planned the conference. She has since planned several youth events with the Greater Houston Community [...]
As a junior in high school, Alexis Elder didn’t understand what the word “philanthropy” meant. Now a sophomore at the University of North Carolina, a member of Youth Philanthropy Connect’s Leadership Team, alumnus of Youth in Philanthropy, and a recent intern at the Greater Houston Community Foundation, Elder has an expert understanding of what “philanthropy” [...]
When YPC Leadership Team member Ali Pakradooni works alongside relatives at the Andrus Family Fund (AFF), she meets different family members everyday. Being the largest family foundation in the country with over 400 members, gatherings can be eye-opening. AFF is a next generation philanthropy program of the Surdna Foundation that seeks to advance the United [...]
When Ashley Rodriguez joined the San Francisco youth-focused philanthropy program Youth Funding Youth Ideas (YFYI) five years ago, she was a program officer. She has since been promoted to senior peer advisor and now mentors and supports community youth programs. As a first-generation college student at the University of San Francisco, Rodriguez is studying child [...]
Raquel Barajas posed the question: “You know how people become afraid of things that aren’t similar to them so that causes a lot of anger and aggression?” The youth philanthropist from San Francisco plans on changing this cultural flaw plaguing public schools, which leads to widespread bullying and discrimination. She has already started the great [...]
“Why not take the opportunity?” That is what Dhruv Patel asked himself when a family member asked him to get engaged with the Youth Philanthropy Connect’s (YPC) Leadership Team. An 8th grader at Fairmont Private School, Patel has been a member of the Tarsadia Foundation’s Youth Board since 2009. The Tarsadia Foundation was established in 1999 [...]
When Jonah Gomez was seven-years-old, he noticed a homeless man sitting outside of a restaurant that he and his family were leaving. Jonah gave the man all of his family’s leftovers. That moment ignited in him a passion for giving to those less fortunate. Jonah is currently a seventh grader at the Pacific Collegiate School [...]
Catherine Maeve Gorey wants to be involved in giving for the rest of her life. The 16-year-old Junior at Darien High School in Darien, CT has been engaged in the Youth Community Fund of Darien and the Youth Philanthropy Connect Leadership Team for the past year. The Youth Community Fund of Darien’s goal is to [...]
Growing up, Gordon Phung was affected by social issues—he just didn’t know it. It wasn’t until his freshman year of high school when he joined Youth Funding Youth Ideas (YFYI)—a San Francisco-based youth philanthropy program that funds $100,000 of youth-led community projects annually—when Phung learned the technicalities of the gentrification and immigration injustices his family [...]
When Kylie Semel was 11 years old, she, her sister, and her cousins had an idea. As a member of the Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation’s Junior Board, she wanted to meet other youth grantmakers that were doing the same thing as her. She and fellow Junior Board member Katie Marcus-Reker had met with youth [...]
