MAKE IT BETTER

The great thing about America is you can make it better than you found it ™.

Help Youth Civic Challenge raise $375,000 by December 31, 2026 to launch five Founding Civic Impact Sites where young people will turn local challenges into measurable community contribution.

Young People See What Can Be Better

Every community has problems that are visible long before they are solved: a local resource that needs protection, a barrier that blocks opportunity, a public process people do not understand, a community need that has gone unanswered, or a story that has never been heard clearly.

Young people notice these challenges because they live with them. They often have energy, insight, and a serious desire to contribute. What they usually lack is a credible structure for investigating the issue, working with others, designing a response, taking useful action, and being heard.

YC² provides that structure.

YC² Turns Concern into Contribution

In YC², students work in teams on a real challenge they choose. They learn to Frame the issue with evidence and lived experience, Design a practical response with stakeholders and multiple perspectives, and Create measurable impact through action, reflection, and public communication.

FRAME: Notice, listen, research, and define a real community challenge.

DESIGN: Build the team, engage stakeholders, use multiple perspectives, and choose a useful response.

CREATE: Act, adapt, measure what changed, and communicate the work honestly.

SHARE: Connect sites, publish learning, and contribute to a national civic impact network.

Why Founding Sites Matter

A cohort supports one program cycle. A Founding Site creates the local structure required to launch, support, evaluate, and connect that work. Each site combines local partnerships, trained adult support, student access, project resources, evaluation, and national connection so that young people can move from concern to responsible public contribution.

Young people already notice the problems around them. They see barriers to opportunity, threats to local resources, gaps in community services, public systems that are difficult to understand, and problems that adults have learned to accept. What they often lack is not concern or ability, but a serious structure for investigating those challenges and turning what they learn into responsible action.

A YC² Founding Civic Impact Site provides that structure. Each site combines local partnerships, trained adult support, student access, project resources, evaluation, and national connection. Coaches provide consistency and guidance without taking ownership away from students. Local partners help teams understand the community and work responsibly. Project support allows students to move beyond discussion and create something useful. Evaluation and documentation help YC² distinguish between activity, learning, and measurable results.

The result is not a worksheet, a simulation, or an awareness campaign. Students investigate a challenge, work with evidence and community voices, design and implement a practical response, examine what changed, and share what another community can learn.

A Founding Site also allows local work to become part of something larger. Projects remain rooted in the needs and character of each community, but their methods, evidence, successes, and limitations can contribute to a national network of civic learning.

What Your Gift Funds

• Local partnerships, recruitment, scheduling, permissions, safety, and site coordination
• Coaches who support youth leadership without taking it over
• Materials, technology, transportation, and the removal of participation barriers
• Student research, stakeholder engagement, project implementation, documentation, and public presentation
• Evaluation, youth reflection, community engagement, and honest reporting
• Connection to the YC² Civic Impact League, cross-site learning, and future Civic Exchange

The Founding Five Goal

By December 31, 2026, YC² seeks to raise $375,000 to establish five Founding Civic Impact Sites. Each site represents a $75,000 integrated investment in local launch, coaches, student access, real civic projects, evaluation, and national connection.

Ways to Give

Fund a coach at $2,500. Fund a civic project at $10,000. Fund a cohort at $38,000. Fund a Founding Site at $75,000. Support regional expansion at $100,000 or more. Gifts of every size contribute to student access, materials, project seed funding, evaluation, and national connection.

Ready to make a major investment? For gifts of $2,500 or more, we invite you to schedule a conversation to discuss the purpose, timing, and fit of your investment. Contact us at grant@yc2.org to arrange a time to talk.

MAKE IT BETTER Monthly

A recurring gift provides reliable support for student access, materials, local research, project seed funding, documentation, and national participation. Every monthly gift helps more young people investigate a challenge, work with others, take responsible action, measure what happened, and show what their community can learn.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Youth Civic Challenge?
Youth Civic Challenge, or YC², is a national, nonpartisan civic capacity program in which young people work in teams on real challenges in their own communities. Students learn to investigate a problem, test assumptions, work with evidence, understand the larger system, engage people with different perspectives, design a practical response, take action, measure what changed, and communicate what others can learn.

What is a Founding Civic Impact Site?
A Founding Civic Impact Site is the local structure that makes the full YC² experience possible. It is not simply a classroom, a student club, or a one-time event. Each site brings together local partners, trained coaches, student teams, project support, evaluation, and connection to YC²'s national network. The MAKE IT BETTER campaign will fund five Founding Sites, creating the first durable local foundations of a larger national civic impact system.

What happens at a Founding Site?
Students begin with a real challenge they have identified in their community. They investigate the issue using evidence and lived experience, engage stakeholders and people with different perspectives, design a useful response, implement a project or public product, measure what happened, and share their work publicly. A team might develop a community resource, map a local barrier, test a new process, organize a public conversation, document evidence, build a partnership, or propose a practical improvement.

What does the $75,000 Founding Site investment support?
The $75,000 investment supports the complete local system: partner readiness and site coordination, trained adult support, student access, real civic work, evidence and accountability, and national connection. It covers the structure required to recruit and support a team, remove barriers to participation, provide project resources, document outcomes, and connect the work to YC²'s larger learning network.

How is a $75,000 Founding Site different from a $38,000 cohort?
A $38,000 Cohort Sponsorship funds one full YC² cohort for a program cycle, including coaching, materials, and project implementation. A $75,000 Founding Site Partnership supports the broader infrastructure around that work, including local launch and partner readiness, coaches, student access, projects, evaluation, and connection to the national network.

How is YC² different from other civic or youth programs?
Many programs focus primarily on classroom instruction, discussion, awareness, or simulated civic participation. YC² moves from learning to contribution. Students are treated as researchers, organizers, designers, project leaders, and public contributors. They are expected to create something useful, document their work, and examine honestly what changed and what did not.

Can I make a monthly gift?
Yes. MAKE IT BETTER Monthly allows donors to provide recurring support for student access, materials, local research, project seed funding, documentation, and national participation.

How will YC² report campaign progress and impact?
YC² will report both accomplishment and learning. Donor updates will describe what launched, what students investigated, what they created, what changed, the limitations of the work, and what happens next.

Help Young People Make Their Communities Better

Fund a coach. Fund a project. Fund a cohort. Fund a Founding Site. Or join MAKE IT BETTER Monthly and help build the first five communities in YC²'s national civic impact network.