Description

I am pleased to recommend a grant of $100,000 From the Public Policy Program to the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) to continue the project, “A New Deal for Youth.”
As you know, this project was originally brought to our attention by the Ford Foundation. With contributions from Ford, Lumina, Luce, and others, CLASP launched the initiative, which was intended to engage young people in the development and articulation of their own policy priorities.
CLASP assembled a group of some 40 “Changemakers”–a diverse group of youth who met together and with experts from CLASP and elsewhere to finalize a policy platform that was released in May 2021. The platform describes priorities in six broad areas, including: economic justice and opportunity, healing and well-being, justice and safe communities, environmental justice, immigration justice, and democracy and civic engagement. With CLASP, the Changemakers have been meeting with the Biden-Harris administration to try to shape Federal policy.
In the next phase of work, CLASP will begin to implement an action agenda, engaging the Changemakers in four efforts: legislative advocacy at the Federal level, Federal administrative advocacy, public awareness, and mobilization of youth and allies. CLASP has been informed by its own evaluation of the first stage of work, including extensive feedback from the Changemakers themselves.
CLASP is an anti-poverty policy and advocacy institute that was founded in 1969. It has been led for the last decade by Dr. Olivia Golden, a former Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services and director of the Washington, DC, Children and Family Services Agency. She will step down in 2022, and a search has been launched to identify her successor. The New Deal for Youth project will be guided by Nia West-Bey, director of youth policy for CLASP.
This project has and will continue to generate important policy proposals. And it will nurture diverse youth leaders who, we hope, will continue to grow as leaders and to shape policy. These goals are entirely consistent with the Foundation’s mission and also advance the priorities of the Public Policy Program.
The Foundation’s grant will primarily support the salaries of CLASP staff working on the project, honoraria for participants, travel costs, etc. The total budget is $1.7 million, which principal support from the Conrad Hilton Foundation.