The Lighthouse Project began organically, working with teenage students in media arts and music, originally in a local high school. Eventually, the program found its way to the YMCA and began to grow. As part of the YMCA, the program was eligible for funding through the Heinz Endowments, a large, regional funder – in fact, they were the only request to the arts/culture portfolio of the foundation from the Y. Not only that, but this was a very rare request focused on the intersection of the arts and youth development.

Across San Diego County, as the network formalized and expanded, the once-unprogrammed group now had an infrastructure to support specific collective needs like self care, thematic shared learning, advocacy to local officials, and engagement across the state and nation. With a new name – the San Diego Creative Youth Development Network– members now feel a legitimacy and a broad, far-reaching impact of their work together. The ecosystem of CYD in San Diego Country feels united, connected, and supported.

When two colleagues met years before working together, they knew they had a penchant for collaboration. When it came time for that collaboration, the ELMA Philanthropies program officer and founding executive director worked together to answer the question, “How do we best support leaders of color to transform their communities through music in the most underinvested communities in the country?”

BAYCAT is a hybrid, social enterprise organization. They believe that, by placing more storytellers into the community from under-represented backgrounds in the field, the stories will more accurately reflect the community. “Change the storytellers, change the world,” says BAYCAT founder, Villy Wang. Over years, they built a long-standing relationship with the Golden State Warriors to support emerging storytellers.

The following brief is intended to provide CYD practitioners with actionable tools in order to effectively partner with CYD funders. Using this model to examine the four categories of funder behavior (Field Builders, Potential Stars, Reluctant Allies, Potential Funders) provides insight into funders and organizations experiences and attitudes about funding CYD.

The research that has been conducted involves an analysis of current and potential CYD funders, the experience and attitudes of those funders through a developed Skill/Will Map, and a deep-dive set of case stories illuminating partnerships between funders and CYD programs. The following brief is intended to provide funders with actionable tools in order to effectively partner with CYD programs.