Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation

Prepping Youth to Attend Site Visits: In Their Own Words

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By Nikki Hilgert, Exponent Philanthropy

Involving youth in site visits gives a whole new energy to the process for everyone involved. Plus, nonprofits say that young people often ask the best questions on site visits.

As with any new experience, preparation is key to successful site visits with youth—and conversation about an upcoming site visit is one great way to prepare. Recently, Annie Hernandez of Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation modeled a helpful dialogue about site visits with two teen philanthropists: Sarah Saltzman and Luke Sturtz.

teen-philanthropy-cafe-web-bannerThe dialogue that follows was based on an exercise in our new Teen Philanthropy Café reader Thoughtful Site Visits.

Read more from Annie, Sarah, and Luke in the recent post “5 Ways to Involve Youth in Philanthropy”

What are some personal reasons you may have for visiting a nonprofit? What would you like to learn?

Luke: One reason is to get a feel for who the people are you’re working with. One-on-one interaction adds so much more value than reviewing a proposal on paper.

What are some skills or information you can gain from site visits?

Sarah: Being able to ask thoughtful questions and articulate what you’re curious about is a crucial life skill. Even in casual conversation, it’s important to be able to ask intelligent questions and maintain conversation with new people. I was shaky in this area when starting to go on site visits, and have improved.

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5 Ways to Involve Youth in Philanthropy

/ Exponent Philanthropy / 1 Comment

By Nikki Hilgert, Exponent Philanthropy

Today’s young people come to philanthropy via many paths—not only by way of their families’ charitable giving. For example, with a combined decade of experience in philanthropy, teens Sarah Saltzman and Luke Sturtz don’t come from families with foundations or formal giving vehicles. They plugged into philanthropy through school and community.

Sarah grew up volunteering for a nonprofit her grandparents founded, and she attended Youth Philanthropy Connect’s (YPC’s) inaugural conference as a nonprofit representative. YPC is a project of the Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation, and Sarah was later invited to join the foundation’s junior board. Luke has been involved with the Dekko Foundation since 7th grade, serving on two youth grantmaking teams.

Sarah and Luke joined us last month for the webinar “How to Engage Youth in Philanthropy in Meaningful, Fun Ways,” and they shared these tips for engaging the young people in your life or community in philanthropy.

Listen to a recording of the webinar “How to Engage Youth in Philanthropy in Meaningful, Fun Ways”

Listen to other Exponent Philanthropy webinar recordings

1.  Involve youth in the creation.

Sarah points out the “generational feeling of powerlessness in middle and high school youth.” Giving youth ownership within a grantmaking process can change this perspective and help them understand that philanthropy is a way for them to impact the world.

“Our ideas, our brainstorming give us a sense of control over the impact we’re having in the world,” says Sarah about her participation on the Fox Foundation’s junior board, which engages in a collaborative grant cycle each year and receives complete control over the decision-making process from the grant application to recommending where the money will go.

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