Allow Good

The goals of Allow Good programs are to equip youth with the knowledge, skills, and capacity to take meaningful action in their communities and to inspire youth to become actively engaged in addressing social challenges throughout their lives. This addresses a pressing need facing our society - engaging our youth in their communities for the long-term benefit of having a society of socially engaged citizens. We are particularly focused on engaging youth who are at-risk from becoming disconnected from their communities.

Through our programs, youth begin the process of engaging in their communities by first learning about and networking with a variety of community organizations and leaders. We know that when youth are equipped with, engaged in, and taking opportunities to build their own community networks and relationships (part of their “social capital"), they grow as individuals and improve their life trajectories. This social capital is key for their futures. It allows them to build interpersonal relationships, develop the networks and skills necessary to finding and keeping jobs, problem solve and improve communication skills, and they become better able to access community government and public resources.

We directly engage youth in their communities by shifting power to youth to become part of the solution to community challenges. They then broaden the representation of community members who are addressing community needs and disparities and build the capacity of the communities in which they reside.

Our school-based program educates youth in public high schools on the social challenges facing their communities, equips them with the tools to effect change, and engages them in taking action for social good. To do this, we work in a “near-peer" model, developing chapters on college campuses and training collegiate chapter members in our curriculum. We empower the collegiate students to teach our curriculum in high school classrooms on a weekly basis under the supervision of high school teachers. Our classes begin with the high school students exploring their local community and its social challenges, philanthropic theory, organizational evaluation and grantmaking. The high school students then start the process, as a group, of narrowing to a single social challenge of importance to them. Next, they research and vet organizations in their community addressing this challenge, issue an RFP, and review grant applications from local organizations. The class culminates with the high school students becoming the grantors and making a donor-funded $1,000 grant to an organization of their choosing.

We currently have three Allow Good collegiate chapters - at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and Loyola University of Chicago. Each chapter partners with public high schools in its neighborhood. The University of Chicago chapter works with King College Prep and Hyde Park Academy, CPS schools in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The Loyola chapter works with Senn High School, a CPS school in its Edgewater neighborhood. The Northwestern chapter works with Niles North High School in Skokie and Evanston Township High School students through Youth Opportunities United (Y.O.U.).

Our reach for 2017 includes:
-45 college students and chapter leaders at our 3 collegiate partners
-415 high school students across 17 classes in 5 Chicago area public high schools who received the Allow Good curriculum
-Distribution of 17 donor-funded $1,000 grants by the high school students to local nonprofits addressing social challenges in their communities. The grantees represented a variety of social issues including: immigrant and refugee services; youth health services; safe spaces for youth after school; and local food sources for the homeless.

Our early results are exciting. We know the following about our 2016 pilot year youth in our school based program:

94% are able to identify social challenges the world faces
85% can identify organizations working to address those challenges
82% can come up with a plan to address the challenges
90% can work with others to address the challenge
100% took independent action following class completion

We are energized by the independent recognition and feedback we have already received. Our two Allow Good chapters recently won the Generous U competition from the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at Brandeis University. And the director of a local food pantry that received a student-directed grant in 2016 stated:

“I can sense that a certain “awareness" has been instilled within the young participants…not only of themselves, but of their place as members of our community as a whole. It is encouraging to see that students are not only learning about the big picture of what philanthropy means, but are truly processing what they have learned in order to formulate plans of action. ... A number of the students have spoken with me to hear more about the Food Pantry, and have asked how to volunteer there during the summer. Some are even planning to organize more food drives when school begins next fall. Something has gone seriously right at Niles North [High School]!"