How do we want the impact of the pandemic to be measured in the lives of the Bay Area’s youth?
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic extend far beyond the purview of doctors and hospitals. It has shifted the prospect of our lives. This is particularly true for today’s youth.
Generational Recovery Fund is a Bay Area regional pooled fund that invests in helping Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) youth to successfully navigate their recovery from the harms of COVID-19. We support them individually and collectively in improving their wellness, advancing their learning, and directing their futures.
The global pandemic that commenced in 2020 may be the greatest disruption ever to confront modern schooling. Experts forecast that youth will lag behind their expected learning trajectories by from five to nine months, on average. Two-in-three parents with low incomes report that distance learning has not been successful for their children. And, in San Francisco, referrals for youth to inpatient programs treating teen mental health issues such as self-harm and anorexia has spiked.
After a year without in-person learning across Bay Area public school systems, young people need our investment.
We know that if we do not act, the consequences of this year will stretch into the long-term. Research shows that those who graduate from high school and college amid major recessions suffer a lifetime of lost earnings. The trauma of eviction can linger. Young people who accumulate debt due to massive losses in job availability and a lack of public benefits available to them will carry financial and emotional burdens for years.
The inequities holding youth back are not new, but they have grown more severe in the past year.
Generational Recovery Fund is raising millions to provide and expand wellness, academic learning, and workforce services for Bay Area youth now through 2026.
- General operating support grants of $100K
- Awarded by local review committees in Bay Area counties
- Youth and funders serve as co-designers and decision-makers
Generational Recovery Fund grants support nonprofits that work within one or more of these three focus areas:
Wellness
We recognize how important it is for youth to emerge from the pandemic emotionally and psychologically healthy. To this end we will support organizations that provide youth with services in the areas of mental health, restorative practices, and proactive healing (such as community building and peer-to-peer support). Generational Recovery Fund grantees will address trauma but they also will accentuate the strengths, opportunities, and joy that are part of a healthy sense of identity for today’s youth.
Learning
The pandemic has challenged youth’s ability to learn and it has decreased their opportunity for learning. The Generational Recovery Fund supports organizations that counteract those effects, helping youth to learn life skills and build the knowledge essential for their self-determination. We will support organizations creating learning environments that successfully engage youth. In these environments and with this support, we hope youth will find greater opportunity to take transformative action.
Jobs
Those who come of age today do so in a distorted and foreboding economic environment. They are both trying to help their families endure through immediate financial hardship and worried about the possibility of their futures. The Generational Recovery Fund aims to support youth with purposeful, paying work, as well as to supply today’s youth with greater access to career pathways and skills development programs that can lead to a self-sufficient future. Programs that help meet these goals, and those that build the social capital of youth through mentorships and professional network building, will be eligible for grants.
We prioritize support for nonprofits that:
- Have BIPOC leadership
- Have trusting, long-standing, healthy connections with other youth-serving community-based organizations or schools
- Serve youth between the ages of 5 and 18. While individual organizations do not need to serve that entire age range, the Fund will make grants that reach all ages
We support programs that:
- Serve BIPOC youth and work in one or more of the Fund’s focus areas of wellness, learning, and jobs.
- Provide immediate services to youth and/or implement transformative practices
- Center youth in leading services, collective action, planning, and decision making
Who we are
We are philanthropic collaborative working to support
today’s youth in their recovery from the
loss of opportunity and connection caused by COVID-19
PARTNERS
This pooled fund is held at The Amalgamated Foundation and is facilitated by Northern California Grantmakers
Round Two:
East Bay Fall 2022 Grants
In the fall of 2022, the Generational Recovery Fund issued a second round of general operating grants supporting East Bay youth, ages five to eighteen, each paired with a supplemental grant to support youth stipends for organization participants. Youth were central to developing the grant focus areas, recommending organizations, and reviewing potential grantees. To ease the burden on nonprofits, the Fund gathered research and recommendations and spoke to potential grantees as opposed to soliciting written proposals.
Inspired by the resilience, hope, and joy of youth and youth-serving nonprofits — including those that did not receive grants from the Fund this round — we are honored to announce the second grantees of the Generational Recovery Fund.
BIZ Stoop’s mission is to cultivate peer support resources for young adults to address the roots of fatalism, shift the health & wealth narratives, and to earn their keep.
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice
$65,000 General Operating Support
$10,000 Youth Stipends
CURYJ unlocks the leadership of young people to dream beyond bars.
EBAYC is dedicated to building supportive relationships with young people to empower them to be safe, smart, and socially-responsible.
The mission of EOYDC is to develop the social and leadership capacities of youth and young adults (ages 5-24) so that they achieve excellence in education, career, and service to their communities.
Lincoln Families disrupts the cycle of poverty and trauma, empowering children and families to build strong futures.
The Unity Council’s mission is to promote social equity and improve quality of life by building vibrant communities where everyone can work, learn, and thrive.
Trybe’s mission is to bring people together by providing opportunities to build and serve. Trybe works with communities of color in low-income neighborhoods to increase opportunities so that the organizing and work happens as a process of communal self-discovery, encouraging residents to take on increasing levels of responsibility as their skills sharpen and their commitment deepens.
YR Media
$100,000
YR Media is an award-winning nonprofit media, technology and music education center and platform for emerging BIPOC content creators who are using their voices to change the world.
Through the YR.Media platform youth correspondents from underrepresented communities all across the country produce journalism, music, graphic design, podcasts, and documentaries that disrupt and shape the mainstream narrative.
Round One:
San Francisco Fall 2021 Grants
In the fall of 2021, the Generational Recovery Fund issued a first round of general operating grants supporting San Francisco youth, ages five to eighteen. Youth were central to developing the grant focus areas, recommending organizations, and reviewing potential grantees. To ease the burden on nonprofits, the Fund gathered research and recommendations and spoke to potential grantees as opposed to soliciting written proposals.
Inspired by the resilience, hope, and joy of youth and youth-serving nonprofits — including those that did not receive grants from the Fund this round — we are honored to announce the first grantees of the Generational Recovery Fund.
3rd Street Youth Center & Clinic
$100,000
3rd Street Youth Center & Clinic helps youth, ages 12-24, from Bayview Hunters Point make healthy and safe decisions that improve their physical, emotional, and social health, empowering them to become successful, contributing adults.
5 Elements Youth Program
$100,000
5 Elements Youth Program’s mission is to explore innovative methods to promote academic and personal development from elementary levels to transitional adulthood. Our programs serve youth of color with evidence-based practices and multicultural frameworks, using the arts as a vehicle to overcome adversity.
Chinese Progressive Association
$100,000
Founded in 1972, the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) educates, organizes and empowers the low-income and working class immigrant Chinese community in San Francisco to build collective power with other oppressed communities to win better living and working conditions and justice for all people.
Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth is a member-led, multi-racial, intergenerational community organization building the leadership and power of Black and Brown children, youth, and families in San Francisco to advance racial and economic justice in our schools and our city. Through grassroots organizing, budget and policy advocacy, and voter engagement, we are building a city of hope, justice, and opportunity, a San Francisco where all children and families have access to high-quality education, living wage jobs, family-supporting benefits, affordable housing, and a voice in the decisions that affect us.
Community Works West
$100,000
Community Works West’s mission is to transform justice through programs and policy rooted in humanity and healing.
Friendship House Association of American Indians uses American Indian culture to heal addiction and strengthen our community.
HOMEY
$100,000
The mission of HOMEY is to transform the lives of high-risk youth and inspire them to not only choose a path of education, self-sufficiency and non-violence, but also strive towards physical, mental and emotional health.
The mission of LEJ is to foster an understanding of the principles of environmental justice and urban sustainability in our young people in order to promote the long-term health of our communities.
MyPath
$100,000
MyPath helps cities and nonprofits “bake” banking, saving and credit-building tools and information directly into their existing youth employment programs to build local economic pathways. Our models leverage this teachable moment at the beginning of their financial lives to set the foundation for upward economic mobility, ultimately transforming their income into financial and personal growth. When we do this, we cultivate a stronger, more sustainable economy for generations to come.
PODER’s mission is to organize with Latinx immigrant families and youth to put into practice people-powered solutions that are locally based, community led and environmentally just. We nurture everyday people’s leadership, regenerate culture, and build community power
Samoan Community Development Center
$100,000
The Samoan Community Development Center is committed to providing an inclusive environment in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Samoan and Pacific Islander voices are heard and community are served and thriving.
Success Centers
$100,000
Success Centers empowers marginalized communities through education, employment and art.
Young Community Developers (YCD)
$100,000
Since 1973 YCD has delivered high quality education and training resources to the most socioeconomically disadvantaged residents within San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point. We combine personalized learning with a culturally conscious curriculum, empowering individuals to break cycles of generational poverty.
Young Women’s Freedom Center
$100,000
Young Women’s Freedom Center’s mission is to empower and inspire young women who have been involved with the juvenile justice system and/ or underground street economy to make positive changes in their lives and communities.
Join Generational Recovery Fund
Generational Recovery Fund provides philanthropy with an opportunity to unite in service of our next generation of leaders. Together, we can build a bridge that allows youth to recover, building on existing crisis response and relief work to re-imagine schools in 2022 and beyond.
Recommend an organization
Generational Recovery Fund convenes local advisory committees of youth and adults to research and recommend grants to youth-serving organizations and collectives working in wellness, learning, and jobs.
If you are part of such an organization or collective, or know of of one, please recommend them so we can learn more about them.