Two Anchorage teens are trying to encourage more young people to get involved with philanthropy– giving their time and money to benefit society as a whole. Youth Philanthropists Alaska, or YPA, aims to teach kids aged 12-17 the power of investing in local charities.
The group plans to meet three times a year. Each kid who attends will donate $10, creating a prize pool of at least $1,000. Three charities give presentations about why their charity is deserving. Then, kids vote on which charity receives the funds. Corporate sponsors match the prize pool– doubling the impact.
Alaska Public Media’s Ava White spoke with eighth grader Liam Cuddy and ninth grader Adam Kaufman who started the group. They had their first meeting last week and raised more than $2,000 for Covenant House Alaska. Cuddy says he’s excited by the early success.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Liam Cuddy: We got 72 kids at our first meeting, and they got a bunch of one sentence descriptions of nonprofits so they could just see their first impressions, which nonprofits supported causes that they really care about– (whether) it's homelessness (or) helping people with disabilities.
We took the top two nonprofits who got the most responses, and also one wild card nonprofit who didn't get as many responses, and then those three presented at the first meeting.
So, each kid gives $10, each of the three nonprofits presents, and then they vote on which one they'd like to give the grand prize pool to. We had some corporate sponsors say, hey, we'd love to match you guys. And so that jumped it.
Our first meeting was $2,160. We gave the grand prize pool to the nonprofit with the most votes. The nonprofits for our first meeting were Covenant House Alaska, the eventual winner, Special Olympics Alaska and the August Fund.
Ava White: Adam, are there any particular issues or causes that you’re especially passionate about supporting?
Adam Kaufman: My brother had colitis, and he spent a lot of his time supporting the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. I'm just pretty into that cause because growing up, I would have bake sales and I would sell lemonade on the side of the road trying to raise money for that cause. It was close to my heart; my brother had that disease.
AW: So, do you feel like it was instilled in you from a young age?
AK: I think so, yeah, and I found how important that was to me, and I wanted to help do that for other kids.
AW: Liam, philanthropy is obviously important for so many reasons, but why is it important for young people specifically to get into philanthropy do you think?
LK: The truth is, Alaska is just facing a population loss right now. I think we really need a set of young kids who are like, ‘man, this community has done so much for me. I probably won't be able to give that back now as a, you know, 15-year-old, but I can at least start', and it really gets them engaged with their community.
I strongly believe that if they (kids) feel engaged with their community, maybe they go to college out of state, maybe they get a bit of working experience out of state, but I believe that they'll come back to Alaska because they really feel connected to the community.
AK: Also, another reason is philanthropy is so important in young people, because this is kind of the most developmental part of our life, and if we grow up giving philanthropy, we'll see the importance of it, and then we'll go and do it for our whole life.
What's really overlooked is that we're also bringing all the kids together and teaching them about philanthropy, and if they have a fun first interaction with philanthropy, that'll inspire more kids to do it. Then they grow older, and they do it, then they teach their children to do it, and it just generations of philanthropy are inspired by even what could be seen as a small event here.
AW: Liam, has this experience changed how you view your community, or even the state?
LK: I think it's even changed how I view the nation as a whole, because anyone who is looking at the tensions in our society can see that we just have a lot of differences right now, and that there are a lot of people who very much disagree with each other, but it made me have more hope for the future.
Before I was thinking, ‘man, can these differences ever even be reconciled?’ And then I was thinking, ‘oh my gosh, they can,’ because we can have this thing of bringing good to the community, and that can bring everyone together, and that can kind of start working through the differences.
I think this is something that isn't even recognized as much from adults, but youth care. They really care about their communities. And when given a chance, they really come up and they show up for their community, and they really want to be an engaged and active part of their community.
Editor’s note: This transcript has been updated to reflect that Covenant House Alaska was the recipient of the prize pool.
