Capacity Building

The work behind the work

Every great social movement in history has depended on young leaders, and so do we.  The Alliance has always been about more than young people voting. We’re about supporting and empowering the young people leading these movements.

Many of the 100+ staff and board members of the Alliance’s affiliates are serving on a board or working in a professional environment for the first time. The Alliance staff and board is committed to providing them with the support, training, and resources they need to succeed in their work and scale their campaigns. A huge portion of our work is dedicated to capacity building so we can empower strong leaders for the next generation.

Building The Movement

1

We are building a community of youth leaders and providing hands-on support

  • Every year, we host a network-wide conference for an person training and peer learning opportunity covering team management, operations, organizing electoral campaigns, fundraising, addressing anti-oppression inside our organizations, and tons more.
  • We provide year round one-to-one coaching alongside a learning community for young executive directors in our network so they can lead their teams and support strong organizations.
  • Training for affiliates’ boards in budgeting, fundraising, oversight of financials, boards’ best practices, and more.

2

We provide the ultimate toolbox of resources and support

  • Affiliates and partners have access to a comprehensive shared resource library to improve their fundraising and financial management, grow their personnel management skills, strengthen their organizing, and become more equitable and inclusive institutions.
  • The Alliance team hosts regular webinar trainings on key network skills from civic engagement planning to base building.
  • We provide training for affiliates’ boards in budgeting, fundraising, oversight of financials, board best practices, and more.
  • For the kinds of support the Alliance cannot provide in-house, we offer access to and funding for a professional services suite including access to coaching services, management training, legal council, data security, cultural competency and anti-oppression, and more.

3

We offer access to tools and tech so our network can achieve scale & impact

  • We provide access to web hosting, a standard set of web templates, and EveryAction to our network with plans to expand our offerings to include peer-to-peer texting platforms and revised web templates.
  • We elevate the stories and voices of young people in local communities through traditional and social media and are building out a more robust brand partnership program to ensure these importative narratives are able to cut through the noise in 2018 and beyond.

How We Are Making It Happen

Annual Network Conference

Every year, we convene organizers from across our network and host trainings ranging from financial management to building issue campaigns. Our conference is unique because we focus not only on program and campaigns, but also running a strong and healthy organization.

One-to-One Coaching

Every day, Alliance team members are on hand to support and coach affiliates in their work on anything from staff management to fundraising in an effort to help scale affiliate program and build strong and sustainable organizations.

Site Visits

Throughout the year, Alliance team members visit affiliates and affiliates to-be to get an in-depth understanding of their work and the community and grow trusting relationships with affiliate staff.

Youth Organizing Partners

In addition to ongoing capacity building work with  Alliance affiliates, Youth Organizing Panthers receive similar support, but with a lighter touch. The Alliance helps scale the work of these organizations by providing a variety of resources:

  • Technical assistance and ad hoc coaching for program and campaign planning
  • Access to our webinar training series, external trainings, and our robust resource library  
  • Peer learning and connection from youth organizing experts and larger networks of organizing and peer support
  • External validation to the press, funders, influencers, and other key stakeholders

Learn More

The Alliance’s capacity building work supports a network of large network of Affiliates and Youth Organizing Partners spanning the nation. Want to know more about who is in the network? Check out all our Affiliates and Youth Organizing Partners here!