2025 Highlights

For the past five years, the California Youth Power Fund (YPF) has supported youth-led organizing in the Bay Area and under-resourced regions across Northern California through general operating support and capacity building, all guided by a participatory grantmaking model led by youth organizers.

This year, the need intensified, and so has our collective response.

We raised more resources and are making more grants to back youth leadership and power building across the region. What makes this moment especially meaningful is what came before it: years of volunteer leadership from program officers and philanthropic partners, anchored by Youth Organize! California (YO! Cali) and Northern California Grantmakers (NCG), and sustained with just one part time consultant working under 8 hours a week.

Together, that effort means: $6.6 million in grants to 40 organizations across 20 counties since 2020.

In 2025, YPF took its next major step forward. With the support of an individual donor, we hired our first full-time staff member (me) as Director. I’m grateful to step into this role after being part of the fund since its founding, and to help carry forward what so many have built together.

Looking ahead, YPF is expanding our model to under-resourced regions across the state, particularly the Central Valley and parts of Southern California, while maintaining our long-standing support in the Bay Area and Northern California.

To meet this moment, we are nearly tripling our annual fundraising goal, with aim to raise and grant out $5 million by the start of 2027.

Young people are best positioned to design the future we all deserve. They are already building new systems, shaping culture, and advancing shared visions. Now is our opportunity to scale their leadership, strengthen the ecosystem around them, and sustain what works at the level this moment demands.

Thank you for being part of this work.

Josh Lee
Director, Youth Power Fund