By Karen Pittman, May 2005

Polling consistently shows that the public is prepared to invest in its young people. But Congress consistently cuts the budgets of youth programs, while special interests such as makers of ceiling fans, archery equipment, sonar fish finders and tackle boxes receive bigger tax cuts. I consider this a failure of democracy.

But the solution to this problem also lies within democracy. The problem of government not paying enough attention to youth will not subside until youth and adult citizens pay more attention to government — learning the issues, tracking the policy proposals, voicing their opinions.

Recent polling conducted by the Forum showed that adults place a higher priority on funding youth programs than other concerns such as tax breaks for new businesses and government reform. It also revealed that they were prepared to raise taxes (on high-income taxpayers) or create trust funds to pay for these services (February, 2005).

George Stephanopoulos, former senior advisor to President Clinton, once said, “Let me make one small vote for the NRA. They're good citizens. They call their Congressmen. They write. They vote. They contribute. And they get what they want over time.”

The same can be said about the AARP and other special interest groups that not only have paid lobbyists who effectively represent their members’ interests, but have members who effectively represent themselves.

Most of the national organizations working to mobilize young people and encourage caring adults to take action have two strikes against them. First, they have limited outreach budgets and small constituencies that are counted in thousands, not millions. Second, they have historically been organized around narrower issues. One group may build a list of supporters who will contact Congress about after-school programs; another group may ask supporters to contact Congress about teen pregnancy; another about education; another about youth employment; and on and on.

The result is lots of little constituencies, none of whom has a fraction of the horsepower of the NRA or other powerful groups. Is this really the best way? Isn’t it likely that someone who cares enough to contact Congress about, say, after-school programs would also be willing to contact Congress about youth employment and education?

More than thirty organizations (the Forum among them) decided it was time to find out. On March 18 they launched the Youth Policy Action Center (youthpolicyactioncenter.org) with a simple, but powerful idea. Put all the alerts — all the messages each organization wants young people and caring adults to send to Congress — in one place. And see what happens.

What happens is new hope to restore our democracy. Conversations, which for too long had been constrained inside the Beltway, are beginning to open up to ordinary citizens. Youth, concerned parents, proud grandparents and dedicated teachers are taking their first steps toward accessing political power, which used to be the exclusive providence of entrenched special interest lobbyists.

People like Edna Rakine, the director of student activities, wellness and community service at Madonna University in Livonia, Mich. are beginning to participate in democracy in a new way. "When I saw that there was an action center that supports what we do at the university, I jumped at it. I looked at it and at the Web site and I thought that this was a good way to empower students, to show them that they have a voice, to fight apathy," says Edna. "I'm glad that your organization is there to lend support. I plan to continue to use it with my students. I need all of the help I can get. It's very good to have places that are more geared to young people. I am telling the students and the professors that there is this place that you can go and see what is going on out there and do something about it."

Edna represents just one of more than 25,000 hits to the Youth Policy Action Center Web site and more than 200 letters sent to Congress in the first week after its launch. It’s worth noting that almost all of the people who visited the Web site to send an alert on one issue ended up sending multiple alerts on multiple issues, effectively multiplying the strength of the collective youth constituency.

The AARP has more than 35 million members. Even if we added up the members, rolodexes and eNewsletter subscribers of the top 50 youth advocacy organizations, I doubt we would have more than a couple million. But finally, we are moving in the right direction.

Read More:
The Youth Policy Action Center
More than 30 national organizations have joined together to make this online tool a reality.

Investing in Youth Poll (4-page PDF) - February 2005. The Forum for Youth Investment.
Results from this national and city-level poll show that adults place a high priority on after-school, job training, service-learning, recreation, arts and health care programs — ahead of other concerns like senior centers or tax breaks for new businesses, with 45 percent of respondents nationally saying these programs are a very high priority. At the city level, this support is even higher, ranging from 78 percent to 62 percent. Support for both tax increases on high-income taxpayers and for community “trust funds” to pay for services for young people was surprisingly strong (66 percent favor the tax increases and 78 percent favor the trust funds nationally).

An Unexpected Gift - March 2004, Karen Pittman, The Forum for Youth Investment. (A version of this article appears in Youth Today, 13(3).)
The White House Task Force for Disadvantaged Youth report was released in December 2003 without fanfare, not because the White House and the Task Force were unhappy with the recommendations made, but because they did not have a sense that there was a constituency to move on the recommendations. There are four reasons why youth advocates cannot afford to let this impression stand.

Preventing Problems, Promoting Development, Encouraging Engagement: Competing Priorities or Inseparable Goals? - 2001. Karen Pittman, Merita Irby, Joel Tolman, Nicole Yohalem, and Thaddeus Ferber. The Forum for Youth Investment.
This paper summarizes several major shifts that have occurred in the past 15 to 20 years in what researchers, policy makers and practitioners think about what young people need, what they get and where they get it. There have also been important shifts in thinking about what young people do, should do and can do, and when it is reasonable to expect results. Based on work started in 1990 at the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research at AED, this paper expands upon Pittman and Irby's 1996 paper, Preventing Problems or Promoting Development. This updated version incorporates critical ideas about young people as participants and change makers — ideas that, in our minds, constitute the next, more powerful iteration of the youth development approach.

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Pittman, K. (2005, May). "Getting Organized, Getting Heard, Getting Results." Washington, DC: The Forum for Youth Investment. A version of this article appears in Youth Today.

Karen Pittman is executive director of the Forum for Youth Investment.