In 2019, the Creative Youth Development (CYD) National Partnership engaged in a project to better understand the funding landscape of their field. To illustrate their findings, researchers connected with funders and CYD program leaders in four settings to better understand the dynamics of their partnerships.
The following case story showcases a partnership between a funder and a local CYD program, demonstrating the “funding skill” and “funding will” traits of the funder.
Fifteen years ago, Villy Wang recognized two things about her community in California’s Bay Area:
-
- There were lots of community youth programs which focused on workforce development, but none that focused on the creative industries
- Young people in their region lacked access to digital media arts programs.
Thus, BAYCAT, the hybrid, social enterprise organization, was born. They believe that, by placing more storytellers into the community from under-represented backgrounds in the field, the stories will more accurately reflect the community. “Change the storytellers, change the world,” says BAYCAT founder, Villy Wang. Over years, they built a long-standing relationship with the Golden State Warriors to support emerging storytellers.