Youth Philanthropists is an innovative grant program managed by young people. The program is implemented under the umbrella of the Association of Slovak Community Foundations
in its member foundations. Purpose of the program is to promote volunteering to young people, to raise awareness on philanthropy among them, to lead them towards active engagement in addressing the
needs of their communities, as well as to support their many talents and interesting ideas.
The program is implemented by young people for young people. Community foundations support the program administratively as well as they play the role of mentors who provide their know-how, advice, training and technical support to the young volunteers.
In November 2013, the Foundation welcomed a new strategic partner and funder, the local company Bardterm, s. r. o. who annually give support to keep the program going.
In 2021, we raised support for our volunteer development program Young Philanthropists from the donation scheme of Ministry of Education, Youth Programs 2014-2021 administered by IUVENTA- Slovak Youth Institute.
The supported project was entitled Young Philanthropists and our partner organization was the Leonard Stockel Grammar School, Bardejov.
The project participants, Young Philanthropists team members, developed their skills in the areas of grant program management and operations of non-profit organizations. By participating in their own grant program they enjoyed an opportunity to make decisions and make a change in their community, they experienced the evident impact the project supported by them achieved, and they received the recognition of their work by means of projects´ final reports submitted by the grant recipients. The project made it possible for us to connect informal and formal youth voluntary engagement in two organizations in Bardejov who have been working in long term to develop volunteer involvement of young people.