Partnering for Greater Impact

Message from Our CEO

Dear Friends,

Working in collaboration has the potential to create bigger impact in transforming lives and communities. YouthBridge is partnership. Even our name signifies “bringing together,” and we value the many partnerships we have established with donors, advisors, and nonprofits.

Our partnerships can take the form of grants, endowment funds, charitable funds, strategic planning for social impact, impact investing and more. No matter the structure, we make it a point to make each of our partnerships personal and individualized—because charitable giving and the work of nonprofits is personal to the people committed to them.

In this year’s Annual Report, you will get a brief glimpse of some of our most impactful partnerships during the year. In their own unique way, these partnerships can change lives and build stronger communities. That’s powerful.
I invite you to reach out to our team anytime with questions, comments, or ideas for collaboration.

Warmly,
Barbara Carswell, Chief Executive Officer

YouthBridge provides donors the opportunity to establish a fund at a local community foundation, using 100% of the fees for grants into the community. YouthBridge awarded Nine PBS a $75,000 Think Big for Kids grant to support its Drawn In initiative.

“We are hoping to impact literacy numbers by drawing in kids through positive stories that represent them and spark a greater interest in reading. It shouldn’t matter your zip code; all kids deserve to thrive.”
– Angela Carr, Nine PBS

YouthBridge believes that change happens when we have the courage to be bold and supports big ideas for solving ongoing problems in our community. The persistent reading proficiency gap for Black and brown children led Nine PBS to pioneer one of the nation’s first kids’ initiatives, targeting kids 6 to 8 years old, to feature African Americans as lead characters in public media.

YouthBridge provides additional grants to nonprofit organizations that our fundholders support or those initiatives that other grantmakers bring to our attention, such as Sherwood Forest, who was recently awarded a multi-year Heritage Grant.

“I’m especially excited for the core capacity assessment part of the grant, which will enable us to highlight the areas where we can generate revenue and build capacity, so that we can continue to serve more kids.”
– Kendra Copanas, Generate Health

YouthBridge is an advocate and active partner of both established and start-up nonprofits, understanding they all can struggle with support for operational needs and the flexibility to be innovative. For 85 years, Sherwood Forest has offered a residential summer camp for kids and continues to evolve programming for the current needs of kids and work to expand so that more kids can grow and develop with the camps every year.

YouthBridge made a second round of investment in Justine Petersen, as part of our ongoing commitment to invest more of our endowment in projects that strengthen the St. Louis community. For this round, we identified a co-investor among our donor-advised fundholders.

“I thought it was a creative and impactful idea; as a donor, it’s an opportunity to do more than just write a check but to simultaneously address unmet needs while also realizing income for my fund.”
– Nina Needleman, Needleman Charitable Fund

YouthBridge has supported impact projects in the St. Louis area for nearly two decades. By investing in local Community Development Financial Institutions, such as Justine Petersen, we are able to generate measurable social impact alongside a financial return, which will eventually also go back into the community. It’s an idea that has resonated with our fundholders as well.