GREENSBORO—Graham Sheridan, Jr., has been on the receiving end of grants, and now he wants to be on the giving end. That's how the 17-year-old senior at Grimsley High School got involved with the Guilford County Teen Grantmaking Council.
"I am on the Greensboro Youth Council, and we run several major events a year. We got a grant last year for our artistry awards project," he says. "I was at the office and someone told me about [the Grantmaking Council.] I thought it would be interesting," he recalls.
Sheridan was part of a recent summit here that gathered 100 students from six such youth non-profits to discuss the working details of grass roots philanthropy. Other groups came from Forsyth, Mecklenburg, Davie, Gaston and Vance counties.
"The purpose was to bring them together to meet their peers," explains Eric Rowles, 35, a training consultant in youth leadership based in Charlotte. He helped run the summit. North Carolina has become a leader in small, community-based philanthropies, a movement that has received encouragement from NCGives, a Raleigh-based initiative that helped sponsor the summit.
Youth grantmakers typically are attached to area community foundations, and Sheridan's Teen Grantmaking Council got its start after a nudge from the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro (CFGG). "The first group met last year," says Cecelia Thompson of the CFGG. "About 25 applied and 17 remained, representing 14 high schools. They made 11 grants worth about $9,800."
Sheridan is one of about 20 in the 2006 Teen Grantmaking group. "I had never done this before," he says. At the summit, his council updated last year's RFP (requests for proposal) application, and discussed the process of awarding grants between $250 and $1,000 once RFP's are distributed and returned.
Thompson makes clear that the students themselves run the philanthropy. She believes that "if you let teenagers have their own hand in things in their own worlds," they will make the decisions.
Sheridan agrees. "We'll decide where the money goes," he says. "All of the requests are for projects run by people our own age."
The summit helped prepare him and his peers for such giving with workshops on fundraising, effective leadership, and basics in how to run a meeting. "Bringing us from everywhere was more exciting than having just our own group," he says. "We talked about what we were doing and where everyone is going to college. Everyone gets a say and we make it work."
Youth giving: ‘Everyone gets a say'
