Rose Youth Foundation Ten Years of Impact: Jewish Teens Engaged in Grantmaking and Leadership – Key Findings
Source: Rose Youth Foundation
Rose Youth Foundation (RYF) marked its first 10 years of Jewish youth engagement in 2010. To understand the impact of RYF, Rose Community Foundation commissioned an external evaluation from Formative Evaluation Research Associates (FERA). The key findings of the resulting report, “Rose Youth Foundation Ten Years of Impact: Jewish Teens Engaged in Grantmaking and Leadership,” presented in summary here, show that RYF has had a significant positive effect on its teen participants both during and after their RYF experience.
Research Methods:
FERA’s research methods included:
- an online survey of RYF alumni with a response rate of 45 percent (55 out of 122 alumni responded);
- an online survey of RYF grantees with a response rate of 32 percent (26 out of 79 grantees responded);
- an online survey of parents of alumni with a total of 32 parents responding (a response rate could not be calculated because alumni were asked to forward the survey invitation to their parents);
- interviews with 32 stakeholders including alumni, parents of alumni and Rose Community Foundation staff; and site visits to four RYF grantees.
RYF is among the oldest Jewish youth philanthropy programs in the country. In 2010 and again in 2011, it was named one of North America’s 50 most innovative Jewish nonprofits by Slingshot: A Resource Guide for Jewish Innovation. RYF offers Denver-area Jewish youth in grades 10-12 the opportunity to learn about strategic philanthropy by becoming grantmakers. Each year, RYF brings together a diverse group of 23 Jewish youth from more than a dozen high schools and every denomination of Judaism to form a grantmaking team at Rose Community Foundation. The youth work together for seven months to explore issues facing Greater Denver and Boulder’s Jewish and broader communities; set grant priorities and create a request for proposals; and make grants totaling $60,000 to address the community issues they identify as important.
The only requirements placed on the group are that their grants must be local — in keeping with Rose Community Foundation’s grantmaking mission — and they must make grants that are “primarily Jewish” in nature. It is up to each group to determine what giving in a “primarily Jewish” way means to them. Over the last decade, 157 young people have participated in RYF, awarding up to $60,000 in grants annually to nonprofit organizations.
Among the key findings of the report:
- Rose Youth Foundation strengthens Jewish identity.
- Rose Youth Foundation creates changemakers.
- Rose Youth Foundation teaches collaboration and leadership.
- Rose Youth Foundation instills a strong commitment to volunteering.
- Rose Youth Foundation alumni stay involved in Jewish life.
The key findings are available here.
The full report is available here.