What We Do | The World We Want Foundation

The World We Want Foundation promotes and supports Young Global Citizens making positive social change in their communities and around the world.

We believe that Young Global Citizens have the passion, talent, determination, and power to create positive social change when given the resources to help them address societal and environmental challenges they select.

To support these young agents of change, we

Work with and through Partner Organizations and Mentors they provide
Help young people design and conduct meaningful Social Action Projects
Help them acquire substantive knowledge and 21st-century skills while creating social value
Provide micro-grants to support their Projects
Provide an online funding platform to encourage and allow others to help fund their Projects
Provide an online Showcase to share their Stories of Social Impact with the world and inspire other young people to believe they can make a difference

How We Do It

The World We Want Foundation partners with nonprofit educational, charitable, community or faith-based organizations, including public and private schools, youth organizations and clubs, civil society organizations, and other foundations who are devoted to youth leadership and empowerment.

Teams of Young Global Citizens generate and conduct Social Action Projects and are guided by Mentors affiliated with the Partner Organizations. This is the community on the ground working with the Teams to help them conduct and implement their Social Action Projects. Many are teachers or counselors, service learning coordinators, program directors, and more.

We provide a project-based active learning format and a framework for young people to gain substantive knowledge from addressing a social problem they choose and, more importantly, to acquire 21st-century skills required to become effective leaders and engaged citizens, including active learning, leadership, teamwork, critical thinking, civic engagement, and digital media communication.

We provide a simple way for others to support these Teams of young people on our funding platform, where anyone can donate any amount to any Social Action Project to help achieve the funding needs of the Project. We also co-fund as a Foundation, so the Foundation and the public support the Projects together, and foster community building as well as social value creation by the Teams.

The Social Action Project

A Social Action Project is an organized, comprehensive, step-by-step strategy for addressing a social problem or challenge and creating positive social change in a community. The World We Want Foundation provides a simple framework:

A Team of Young Global Citizens will:

Identify a problem, need, or challenge in the community
Research and develop a solution and an action plan
Measure and record the outcome or impact in the community and on the Team
Share their Story of Social Impact as a Digital Portfolio on our Showcase

The Story of Social Impact is the description and documentation of the creation, conduct, and outcome of a Social Action Project in a "digital portfolio" – any combination of compelling videos, slideshows, PowerPoint presentations, descriptive text, final reports, charts, graphs, photos, drawings, or other visual media.

By following this project-based active learning format and conducting a Social Action Project, guided by informed teachers or mentors, Young Global Citizens acquire:

the substantive knowledge gained from identifying and researching a particular social problem they choose, developing and implementing a solution to that problem, and communicating the results
the practical, social, and technical 21st-century skills required to become effective leaders and engaged citizens, including active learning, leadership, teamwork, critical thinking, civic engagement, and digital media communication

You can see completed Projects on our Showcase page and active Projects on our Projects in Progress page. You can learn much more about Social Actions Projects and their benefits, and some of the guidelines we use to decide which Projects we will support and fund, from these online resources:

Young Global Citizens

The World We Want Foundation supports Young Global Citizens who wish to be agents of change in their communities. They are the beneficiaries of our support and the support of our Partner Organizations, Mentors, and Donors. You can start your own Social Action Project on our Start Your Project page, where you will find information about how to conduct a Project, what you might need, what to expect, and instructions, descriptions, examples, helpful videos, and more.

Partner Organizations

We collaborate and work with two kinds of Partner Organizations.

Partners that provide teams of Young Global Citizens with the opportunity to conduct Social Action Projects, and Mentors to guide them:

These Partners are typically nonprofit educational, charitable, community or faith-based organizations, including public and private schools, youth organizations and clubs, civil society organizations, and other foundations. They are the catalysts for change and share the credit for engaging young people to develop 21st century skills while creating positive social change.

Partners that are interested in providing other kinds of support for youth development:

These Partners are typically other nonprofit organizations, community foundations, family foundations, corporations, small businesses, governmental agencies, or other entities interested in joining us in supporting or funding youth development. Their support ranges from simply endorsing our mission by sharing logos and mission statements on our respective websites, to making donations, to partnering in grant applications and funding opportunities where our work is complementary and helps scale our initiatives with young people around the world.

Visit our Partner with Us page to find out more about Partners and becoming a Partner.

Mentors

Project Mentors are interested adults who are willing and able to help Young Global Citizens learn valuable skills and achieve change in their communities through Social Action Projects, typically someone they know, such as a teacher or service learning coordinator, a counselor, or a parent. They are affiliated with the Project's Partner Organization. Find out more about becoming a Mentor on our Partner with Us page.

Donors

We provide an easy way for interested donors to give to specific Social Action Projects in progress, using the online giving platform found on our Projects in Progress page, where 100% of all funds donated to a Project goes directly to the Project. We also provide an easy way for donors to make donations to support our Foundation, which we then use to make micro-grants to Projects and to support our program and operations. See our Donate page to find out more about becoming a donor.

Who We Are

We are a tax-exempt non-profit 501(c)3 organization, we seek and accept tax-deductible donations, and we provide young people who are creating positive social change with the assistance described above.

We are creating a new paradigm. We provide a "crowdfunding" platform devoted to young people conducting Social Action Projects, where the public can donate directly to a Project and 100% of all funds donated goes directly to the Project. And we provide an online Showcase for sharing their successes – their Stories of Social Impact – with the world.

We are establishing a worldwide community and connected network of Partner Organizations, Mentors, Donors, citizen philanthropists, foundations, corporations, businesses, governmental agencies, and other nonprofit organizations supporting youth development and leadership.

Our focus is young people – to inspire, inform, educate, and empower them to create positive social change, make measurable differences, share their Stories of Social Impact with the world, and become social innovators, change-makers, and productive, engaged citizens.

Welcome to The World We Want Foundation!