Finding Common Agendas: How Young People are Being Engaged in Community Change Efforts

To further the exploration of the changing role of community development organizations (CDOs) in youth development work, the Ford Foundation retained Community Development Associates, Inc., (CDA) in January of 1998 to conduct an investigation of the interconnection between youth development work and that of community-based organizations.

In Part I of this paper, Thaddeus Ferber and Karen Pittman reflect on the range of responses to youth found among organizations that have community change as their primary mission. Ferber and Pittman prepared an analytical framework for describing how and why young people are connected to CDOs.

Part II of this paper contains a summary of their report. Specifically, this report provides a “big picture” view of how this intersection is being played out across the country; reports on survey data on almost 100 CDOs (one-quarter of which were supplemented with telephone interviews); and offers profiles of six CDOs previously not on the national radar screen.