Youth Speaks

Youth Speaks is one of the premier nonprofit presenters of spoken word in the United States, producing multiple forums for performance, as well as a comprehensive curriculum of workshops and youth development programs. Headquartered in San Francisco, the organization serves 10,000 Bay Area young people aged 13 to 24 each year. In addition, it reaches more than 750,000 youth through its annual Brave New Voices Festival and digital output. This grant to Youth Speaks advances the Performing Arts Program’s Youth strategy through the Program Delivery substrategy.

Youth Speaks is one of the premier nonprofit presenters of spoken word in the United States, producing multiple forums for performance as well as a comprehensive curriculum of workshops, arts education, and youth development programs for young people aged thirteen to nineteen. Its reach is widespread: 45,000 Bay Area youth participate in its local programs, including its repertory theater company, The Living Word Project; 250,000 people benefit from its national programs such as Brave New Voices, an annual gathering of young poets; and fifty-three like-minded organizations throughout the country have joined a national network that the organization helped build. This rapid growth trajectory has been a challenge: Youth Speaks is presently struggling to find the appropriate staffing and financial structure to sustain and expand its programs under the national spotlight it has garnered.