Nonprofit News: World Savvy, Bridgemakers and Youthprise Awarded New Pluralists Grant

Article by Becky Fillinger, photos provided

Dana MortensonThree local non-profits were awarded a New Pluralists Healing Starts Here grant to co-create a set of youth-led, intergenerational listening sessions to understand what young people and other community leaders want to see in their schools. We spoke to Dana Mortenson, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of World Savvy to learn more about the unique collaboration, the grant and how it will be rolled out in the coming academic year.

Q:  Congratulations on the grant awarded to World Savvy, Bridgemakers and Youthprise to develop youth-led programs on civil discourse. How did the partnership of the three organizations come about? Did you jointly apply for the grant? 

A:  World Savvy, Youthprise, and Bridgemakers have a long history of collaboration and mutual support. With similar missions to empower students from all backgrounds to succeed, commitment to youth voice and leadership, and a strong belief that we are stronger when we work together, our organizations have been vocal advocates and thoughtful partners for each other. For example, we collaborated in January 2022 on an event in World Savvy’s Changemaker Series on Supporting Youth-Led Systems Change. In addition, all of our organizations are headquartered in Minnesota - a state of great prosperity and also a state that is rapidly shifting demographically and economically and has work to do in creating shared prosperity for all youth. We all have a deep interest in, and commitment to, expanding youth opportunities here locally. 

When the opportunity to seek financial support through a New Pluralists Healing Starts Here grant came about, we knew this could be a perfect fit for our organizations to work collectively. This grant at its core is about expanding “pluralism,” which New Pluralists really sees as people coming together to learn and discover breakthrough solutions to the common challenges we face. With so much division happening in conversations around education, and much of it drowning out the voices of those most impacted - our youth - we knew we wanted to submit an initiative that focused on youth facilitating this work across difference. 

We put together a collaborative team from across our three organizations in the summer of 2022, and developed the project vision and plan called Youth Reimagining Education. We were thrilled when our joint application was accepted in late 2022!

Q:  How will you recruit and train the youth leaders for the programs? 

A:  Fostering youth leadership is an expertise of each of our organizations. Bridgemakers was founded by youth, for youth—to build purpose, prosperity, and power for youth facing adversity. Youthprise has spent over ten years helping organizations across our community to build programs with and for youth and responsive to their needs. World Savvy works nationwide with districts and schools to create schools and classrooms that foster youth voice and leadership.

The facilitation of the work will be carried out by existing Bridgemakers youth leaders, with additional training and support from Youthprise and World Savvy in frameworks and facilitation practices relevant to the project.

Q:  I know these may be early days, but where and when will the programs be offered? 

A:  The Youth Reimagining Education project will host 5-8 youth-led listening sessions, with participants of all ages, across Minnesota in the fall and winter of 2023-24. Youth will then lead the consolidation and synthesis of themes, culminating in a Knowledge to Action Summit next spring, which will bring back together participants from the listening sessions into a day-long design workshop to co-create actionable solutions that can be actively advanced by Minnesota youth. 

Q:  News of your grant award is encouraging to everyone who envisions a more thoughtfully engaged population in Minnesota. I hope the grant will be renewed in future years. How will you measure the success of the programs?   

A: We hope the collaboration will result in changes at the local and state level that have a profound impact on the state of education in Minnesota, so that a great quality education that meets the needs of diverse individuals will be available to all students across the state, regardless of their address, income level, or racial or ethnic identity. However, we also have another equally important goal for the project, which is that youth and other members of the community are empowered by this process to lead inclusive dialogue and find solutions with those who may hold different beliefs in a way that yields returns for our community and democracy.

Q:  How may we follow progress and news of the program?   

A:  The best way is to follow World Savvy, Bridgemakers, and Youthprise on our social media channels - especially LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also check out World Savvy’s blog, or subscribe to our mailing lists on the World Savvy, Bridgemakers and Youthprise websites.