Cohort 10’s mission was to promote age diversity and teen perspective in the philanthropic sector by helping to create youth advisory boards in Tulsa-area nonprofits. Their project, Teens on Board, aimed to bring valuable youth perspectives to community changemaking while providing youth with exposure to the nonprofit sector and a meaningful opportunity to have their voice heard on important issues.

To bring this plan to reality, the students worked to research the legal considerations of youth advisory boards (for example, they determined that such a board must be non-voting) and created a set of bylaws and a participation and nondisclosure agreement for each youth board to implement. They also created and promoted a project website whereby Tulsa-area youth could apply to and be connected with an advisory board at a local nonprofit.

As a pilot of the model, the cohort helped to incubate the first youth advisory boards at ImpactTulsa and the Mental Health Association Oklahoma. The students built on these organizations’ existing interest in youth voice by helping to formalize a sustainable board structure. According to ImpactTulsa’s Alex Paschal, the advisory board functioned essentially as a focus group, providing valuable feedback on the organization’s ongoing initiatives from a teenage perspective.

Upon Cohort 10’s graduation, Tulsa Changemakers became the long term home for Teens on Board. To facilitate the transition, the students created a franchising toolkit, which included instructions on recruiting teens from across the community, working with nonprofits, marketing the project, and facilitating the creation of a youth advisory board.

In an interview, Changemakers’ founders Andrew Spector and Jake Lerner reflected on the partnership with Cohort 10. At the time, Changemakers had a strong interest in developing youth voice on nonprofit boards, but lacked the resources to get the idea off the ground. They reflect that the students’ project was a perfect fit for their needs, providing the all-important manpower to jump-start this work and build initial momentum in the community. “The act of engaging with us in that conversation and providing a template was so valuable... Developing a project like this involves rapid prototyping and iteration to hone the model. By creating a first draft, [the cohort] was essential in propelling the work forward.”

Since adopting Teens on Board, Changemakers has continued robust work to promote and implement youth advisory boards among local nonprofits. In partnership with the Opportunity Project, Changemakers supported the development of youth boards at organizations including the Urban Coders Guild and Hunger Free Oklahoma. Jake and Andrew observe that, in recent years, the city-wide narrative around youth voice and student participatory action has changed for the better: “The city does talk more about this sort of thing now. More funders are interested in youth voice. YPI had something to do with that by showing what youth are capable of.”

Cohort 10 alumna Abigail Swank has been an important part of the long-term success of the Teens on Board vision. Abigail stayed involved

with Teens on Board throughout her college years, including by helping to organize the youth boards for Hunger Free Oklahoma and Little Light House. Currently a senior in leadership and non-profit business at ORU, Abigail recently joined the Changemakers team as an intern and is working to further develop the Teens on Board model.