Putting Youth Agency at the Core of Funders’ Processes and Decision-Making – How to Involve Children and Youth in Your Work

Section

The peer-learning journey “How to Involve Children and Youth in Your Work” is a series of online webinars organised by Philea’s Children and Youth Network throughout 2024 and 2025 that aim to advance youth inclusion in the work of foundations by providing concrete pathways and tools to implement. Following each module, foundations that are willing to transform their way of working with young people can benefit from input from organisations with specific expertise on a given topic.

The fifth module explored “How to Put Youth Agency at the Core of Funders’ Processes and Decision-Making” on 6 March 2025 with Assifero and their Future Chair initiative. Read on to discover the key points and recommendations from presenters and those involved in the project.

Aims and content

This module emphasised the importance of considering young people’s views and fostering intergenerational dialogue to drive organisations towards sustainable impact. It also explored some of the critical conditions that must be considered to enable meaningful youth participation. It provided practical tips and insights on the challenges and opportunities presented by the process, and shared concrete examples of youth involvement within the decision-making practices of Italian foundations.

Learning topics covered

Fostering a supportive intergenerational decision-making culture
Encouraging intergenerational dialogue and justice
Challenges and opportunities for youth participation in decision-making processes
The role of philanthropy infrastructure organisations in encouraging transformative youth leadership within the sector

The project

Born during the 20th anniversary of Assifero, the national association of foundations and philanthropic organisations in Italy, Future Chair is a call to action for philanthropic organisations to meaningfully involve children and youth in their organisations. The name stems from participating foundations symbolically leaving an empty chair at their meetings to highlight the absence of children and youth in decision-making processes.

The initiative, which was itself developed through a participatory process with young people, consists of a commitment to be signed by participating foundations, and a series of materials and webinars to build capacity and educate the sector in relation to meaningful youth participation, and active monitoring of the progress that foundations make along this process. The commitment includes 6 principles:

Promote and create spaces for dialogue and debate
Remove obstacles and ensure enabling conditions
Promote a culture of active listening at all levels
Take into account the views and ideas of young people and follow up
Communicate your progress
Promote principles

Being a philanthropy infrastructure organisation, Assifero perceives its role as a “system mover” and catalyst for change, aware that from their position they can produce a ‘cascade’ effect within the sector, helping to disseminate experiences, ideas and knowledge among members and beyond, triggering transformation. To date, 60 Italian foundations have signed the commitment and The initiative has produced a ripple effect into the wider non-profit and private sectors with organisation’s looking for inspiration and potential ways to replicate it within their contexts.

Title	Future Chair
Country	Italy
Year	2023
Mode of participation	Consultation-Collaboration-Leading
Age of young people involved	16-35

Point in philanthropic cycle

Future Chair involved young people at the following points in the philanthropic cycle

Staff: Building capacity for foundation staff
Defining issues and priorities to be targeted by programmes
Investigating the views of children/youth on the issues (research)
Designing programmes (activities, grants)
Taking action (implementation)
Reflecting on results (evaluation)
Sharing the learnings and following-up (dissemination, valorisation)
Board: joining a governance structure (advisory group or board)

Recommendations based on this experience:

The presenters offered the following recommendations:

Removing obstacles and enabling conditions (Future Chair commitment number 2) is a fundamental principle for the process to succeed and it must be taken very seriously. To help with some initial considerations and assessment, the presenters shared some guiding questions that can support the process, such as “What do we mean by youth”, “How sustainable is our approach?”, “Are we safeguarding young people?”, “Are we providing them with the tools to engage meaningfully and freely” and much more. They also recommended to tap into the existing literature that exists on the topic and that can be precious in providing guidance on this aspect (see below list of resources).
Make it structural, meaningful and invest resources: The presenters observed that a common need for foundations is to gain more knowledge and share good practices around succession planning and intergenerational dialogue inside the organisation. They also observed that there is often insufficient time and resources invested in the process, and a gap in knowledge and skills development to be redressed.
Keep in mind your social capital and where you can influence others: Foundations could for example support their grantees financially and organisationally to adopt these same principles and practices of children and youth participation at their own organisation, having a ripple effect on the broader sector and potentially also other sectors too.

Excerpt from Module 5 Q&A

Could you tell us about some of the roadblocks that the foundations have encountered in getting young people engaged?

We have observed that one of the most frequent challenges revolves around the intergenerational dialogue. Sometimes it seems a bit difficult for a foundation to first assess whether the conditions and tools are there to have a fruitful intergenerational dialogue and then recognise that there is a need to build the necessary skills and find helpful tools for this. Because indeed, intergenerational dialogue does require some skills and tools, it doesn’t just come out naturally. And then, this upskilling requires an investment both financially and in terms of the time dedicated to it, so it’s essential to take this into account. It’s a process that requires patience and intentionality. And as for other processes, it is sometimes very challenging because you need to understand that in order to have real change, you’re going to need time and you’re going to need resources for that.

Quotes

“As a foundation who wants to involve young people in its work, you should be asking yourself the question if you’re talking in an interesting language for young people and accept that they’re not expected to want to be part of what you’re doing. And maybe you should ask them why and what are they interested in instead of taking it from bottom down and assuming they should be interested in this: It takes a lot of courage and a lot of self-questioning.”

Andrea Chiara Brancale, young co-developer of Future Chair’s initiative, Assifero

“When we talk about impact, we do recognise that as a National Association of foundations we cannot claim direct impact, but certainly we can contribute to start, speed up, improve certain processes. In the Italian context we are observing that some organisations are now more at the forefront of this kind of work and can inspire others, but we also do not want to leave anyone behind, as our role as institutional philanthropic organisation (PIO) is to meet organisations where they are. So, we’re very much focused on tailoring ideas, programmes, opportunities, uplift successful examples and share learning from failures. And Future Chair is up for grab! It’s not meant to be an Italian thing, but it can be replicated by other PIOs and other foundations in other contexts and regions”

Francesca Mereta, Assifero