The Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI)
The Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) is a unique programme designed to teach secondary school pupils the basic skills of effective giving and to highlight the positive impact they, as young people, can have on their communities.
Pupils work in small groups to research the needs of their local community and then, using their research, select the grassroots social service charity they believe is best placed to address those needs. They visit their chosen charity and then showcase their charity in a presentation to their peers and an independent panel of judges in a competition. The winning group is awarded £3,000 for the charity they chose to support.
YPI meets many of the requirements of the National Curriculum for citizenship at Key Stages 3 and 4 and during the course all pupils develop transferable skills of presentation, research, writing, assessment and consensus building.
The Youth and Philanthropy Initiative was launched in Toronto in 2002 by Canadian entrepreneur and life-long community builder Julie Toskan Casale, co-founder of MAC Cosmetics Ltd. and the Toskan Casale Foundation. Julie developed YPI after she became the first Canadian to graduate from The Philanthropy Workshop. YPI is now in one hundred and twenty schools all over Canada, a number that is increasing all the time.
In September 2007 the Institute for Philanthropy, in partnership with the Toskan Casale Foundation, launched the UK pilot of YPI in ten London secondary schools.
For further information about how your school can participate in the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative, to see sample resources and to view a short film about YPI, please visit www.toskanfoundation.org.
For further information about YPI in the UK and to find out how your school can get involved, please contact ypi@instituteforphilanthropy.org.uk.
