YPI Canada is an inclusive, multi-award-winning approach to youth-led participatory grant-making and youth civic education. We help young people to be included, empowered, and engaged in creating more compassionate, connected communities where they live, and a more philanthropic future for all.

Watch our classroom intro video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TjGe0f2lac

We with work with schools every academic year to connect teenagers to the social justice issues and charities that they think matter in their own communities, in real time, and in real life. We challenge and support students to understand social issues and their root causes, to value the knowledge and experience of local charity professionals working every day to make our communities better places, and to be in solidarity with people who have been historically marginalized. At the end of the project at each school, students share their research about social issues and local charities with each other, and the students decide which local charity will receive a $5,000 grant, through a youth-majority judging panel.

Every $5,000 that is awarded to a local Calgary charity through YPI’s youth-led grantmaking process engages an average of 170 students in a pivotal experience of community-based philanthropy that builds their 21st Century skills, their social-emotional growth, and their sense of connection to their community. On average, over 1,400 people are involved or directly impacted by the process of awarding each YPI grant: students, teachers, charity professionals, family and other school community members, grantees, and grant beneficiaries.

YPI Canada’s extraordinary short and long-term impacts are made possible by a network of secondary school students, teachers, charity professionals, foundations and individual donors across the country.

We are growing, and we are asking donors in Calgary, and in communities across the country, to join YPI’s network – thousands of students, teachers, and charities who participate every year – and help us drive support for immediate community needs, while creating the conditions for lasting social change.

YPI Canada’s key expenses are as follows:
1. Grants for charities selected by students (1 x $5,000 grant per participating school, per year)
2. Program staff and resources (program staff with significant education experience, equity and anti-racism expertise, and strong facilitation experience, plus curricular resources, website, and technology)
3. Operations and fundraising staff and resources (management, finance, technology administration, communications, fundraising)
4. Administrative and compliance costs (audit, occupancy, insurance)

YPI Canada’s Calgary supporters help to secure enrolment spaces for new and returning schools in Calgary.