Originally published as a Perspectives piece by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO).
What does shared power look like when young people are trusted not only to advise philanthropy, but to make decisions?
This Perspectives piece explores the Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation’s Community Experts Team (CET), a participatory grantmaking model in which young people with lived experience help design the grantmaking process and make funding decisions. It illustrates Youth-Possible Philanthropy® in practice—bringing together youth participatory grantmaking, trust-based philanthropy, an equity-centered approach, multi-sector collaboration, participatory learning, and possibility development.
The piece also highlights The L.E.A.D. Agency’s role as a learning partner to the Foundation and the CET Possibility Lab, where young people engaged directly with evaluation findings, interpreted what the learning meant, and helped identify possibilities for the program’s future.
At its core, the story asks philanthropy to move beyond inviting youth into existing structures and toward creating the conditions for young people to share power, shape meaning, and lead.
Read the full Perspectives piece at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.