The Youth Service Improvement Grants (YSIG) program supports activities to improve the quality of direct services for young people ages 5 to 25 in the five boroughs of New York City.
Donor Name: William T. Grant Foundation
State: New York
City: New York City
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline (mm/dd/yyyy): 03/10/2022
Size of the Grant: $25,000
Details:
The goal is to strengthen existing services by helping youth-serving nonprofit organizations address challenges or remedy problems at the point of service, where staff and youth interact.
YSIG is unique in that it urges applicants not only to discuss their organizations’ promise and potential, but to identify gaps or challenges in the services they provide. They ask applicants to be critical and reflective, to consider why and how complications exist, and to articulate how they intend to improve the ability of their programming to provide positive impact on youth.
Examples of problem areas for improvement include: inadequate curriculum, gaps in the service skills of frontline staff, or a limitation in current services that adversely affects participants’ experiences. Beyond these examples, they welcome other compelling needs for service improvement.
Priority Consideration: Reducing Inequality
As part of the ongoing evolution of YSIG, which is one of a variety of good-neighbor grantmaking strategies the Foundation has pursued since the 1970s, Foundation leadership took stock of the program in 2018. This effort focused on assessing the landscape of youth inequality in New York City in order to gain insight into how they could do more to support young New Yorkers.
Ultimately, three major themes emerged:
- Inequality corresponds with geography, with poverty rates well over 40 percent in some neighborhoods and too little of Foundation grant dollars going to those communities.
- A purely place-based approach to grantmaking would neglect under-resources communities that are more geographically dispersed. Mexicans, now the third largest immigrant group in the city, have high rates of poverty but few established organizations tailored to their needs. LGBTQ youth are another group that is too often overlooked and whose well-being demands greater support.
- There is a notable lack of racial, ethnic, gender identity and sexual-orientation diversity among executive directors and CEOs of youth serving organizations.
Today’s Youth Service Improvement Grants program capitalizes on these insights by prioritizing applications from organizations that:
- provide direct services to youth in eleven community districts identified as having the highest risk to child well-being by the Citizens’ Committee for Children,
- have existing programming tailored specifically to Mexican-descent or LGBTQ youth, or
- are led by people of color or members of the LGBTQ community.
Funding Information
- Awards are $25,000 each and support projects lasting one year, starting on September 1 of the award year.
The Foundation will award up to six new Youth Service Improvement Grants annually. - Although the Foundation is prepared to fully fund projects of $25,000, they are also willing to co-fund larger improvement efforts with other funders.
- Regardless of the size of the budget for the improvement project, they encourage applicants to commit some of their own resources through in-kind support or the use of unrestricted funds. They view this as an indication of organizational commitment to the improvement project, especially in larger organizations.
Eligibility Criteria
The YSIG program awards grants only to youth-serving community-based nonprofit organizations in any of the five boroughs of New York City whose staff have direct programmatic contact with youth at the point of service. Applicants must meet all organizational criteria to be eligible. Organizations previously funded under either of the Foundation’s Youth Service Grant programs cannot apply again for at least 18 months after the end of their award.
Organizational Criteria
- Serve youth ages 5 to 25. At least 80 percent of youth participating in the services targeted for improvement must be in this age range. The applicant’s staff must have direct contact with youth at the point of service.
- Have their own 501c3 tax-exemption. If an applying organization is separately incorporated but tax-exempt through a group ruling (religious institutions), the applicant should supply the 501c3 letter of the parent organization and documentation that it is part of the group.
- Have an operating budget between $250,000 and $5 million, if the organization serves youth only. If the applying organization serves youth and other populations, its operating budget must be less than $20 million and its youth services budget must be between $250,000 and $5 million.
- Have most recent financial statements reviewed by an auditor, per New York State law requirement. If the organization’s annual budget is under $750,000, then certified public accountant’s reviewed financial statements are required.
- Have filed IRS Form 990.
What they do not Support
The YSIG program only supports improvement activities at the point of service for youth. They do not support:
- General operations.
- Planning, needs assessment, and evaluation proposals.
- Organizational improvement activities not focused on changes at the point-ofservice, such as board development or financial system updates.
- Capital fund projects, scholarships, endowments, lobbying, real estate purchases, or awards to individuals.
- Expansions or additions to programming, including changes that simply increase the number of slots in a program or result in new programming.
- Public and private schools.
- Organizations that utilize fiscal sponsors/conduits.
- Organizations that are based outside the five boroughs of New York City
For more information, visit Youth Service Improvement Grants (YSIG).
