What Can Philanthropy Do to Advance Thriving Youth?

2025 has been a year of immense change for young people. As always, GTY engages with youth-serving funders, field leaders, and young people to learn about groundbreaking efforts to create opportunities for thriving, especially for youth furthest from opportunity.

Below are six of the top ideas for philanthropy from 2025. We hope this review will inspire you as we prepare for the challenges to come.

2025

Top 6 Ideas for Philanthropy.

Invest in Youth Voice & Leadership

  • Young people are not isolated from the crises that we face. They are fully confronting the world that we live in and organizing to build the future. Youth reject narrow or tokenized roles. They are ready to lead, rather than waiting for traditional hierarchies to validate them. 
  • Advocacy requires both resilience and care. Being a changemaker today is exhausting and, at times, disheartening. Yet, young people continue to show up—staying informed, grounded in cultural values, and pushing forward despite resistance. 
  • Trust youth. Strategies for building trust include expanding peer-focused policies, programs and services and redesigning crisis systems so they are not punishing or punitive for youth.
  • Pay youth. Providing paid internships and support that respects diverse backgrounds helps make economic pathways more accessible and meaningful

Invest in Cross-Sector & Community-Oriented Approaches

  • Support intersectional approaches so community leaders can engage in broad, interconnected strategic work, instead of being limited to siloes defined by funders. 
  • Provide multi-year general operating support so leaders have stability and autonomy for long-term impact, and the nonprofit sector is strengthened to meet the challenges ahead. 

Invest in Systems Change

  • The current economic and political climate heightens urgency. Rising costs, limited job opportunities, and reduced social support make accelerating youth-driven advocacy for systemic economic change critical. 
  • Immigrant youth leaders call for systemic change in policies and institutions, advocating for inclusion, equity, and acknowledgement of immigration as a normal and valuable part of society.

Invest in Narrative & Storytelling

  • Storytelling about mental health helps people feel less alone, dismantles stigma, contributes to narrative shift, and builds a shared language about asking for help. 
  • Immigrant youth leaders emphasize the importance of recognizing their full humanity and dismantling toxic narratives that marginalize them.

Stay Committed to Equity

  • Invest in addressing structural inequities and reducing barriers to ensure that all youth, especially those furthest from opportunity, can participate fully and equitably. 
  • Youth climate leaders call for climate justice solutions that directly address systemic inequities, centering the experiences of marginalized and Global South communities.

Lean into Love and Joy!

  • Often we focus on when things go wrong—but what does it look like to create a future for youth where things can go right? It’s important to create spaces for happiness and joy, and opportunities for youth to thrive. 
  • The strongest and most sustainable organizing is driven by love for one’s community, oneself, and the world.

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GTY is a funders’ forum promoting equitable systems, structures and opportunities for young people to thrive in learning, work, citizenship and life.

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