Initiatives

Since 1994, YouthBuild USA has served as a national intermediary for AmeriCorps funds and education awards, bringing additional resources to local programs.

YouthBuild USA's Asset Building Initiative includes the YouthBuild National Individual Development Account Program,YouthBuild Asset Trust for Graduates, and the Helene D. Stoneman Scholarship and Civic Leadership Program.

Because of YouthBuild’s proven effectiveness in working with adjudicated youth, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) selected YouthBuild USA to participate in a major national demonstration of YouthBuild programs’ efficacy in bringing down the recidivism rate of ex-offenders.

With support from the JEHT Foundation, YouthBuild USA is working to access state-level criminal justice funds for YouthBuild and other comprehensive youth programs that are positioned to serve as diversion alternatives or re-entry programs for youth offenders.

The construction of new and rehabilitated affordable housing has remained at the heart of the YouthBuild program ever since the first YouthBuild program in East Harlem rehabilitated an abandoned drug building in 1972. Oftentimes, students and graduates are heard describing the transformation that took place within them as having been akin to their building of homes, like rebuilding the structure and internal furnishings of their lives. 

The YouthBuild Loan Fund offers affiliated YouthBuild programs and other nonprofits the opportunity to obtain loans to address their program and real estate needs. The Loan Fund lends to organizations and projects engaging low-income, unemployed or underemployed young adults in construction work and providing training and education in accordance with the YouthBuild model. The Loan Fund is certified by the United States Treasury Department as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).

YouthBuild USA received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support excellence in diploma granting YouthBuild charter and alternative schools.

YouthBuild USA joined with the National Youth Employment Coalition and the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps in using a private foundation grant to give grants to 30 local youth organizations around the country, with the goal of mobilizing low-income youth to vote in the 2004 presidential election.

The YouthBuild USA Youth Development Practitioner Apprenticeship (YDPA) certificate program increases professional development opportunities for youth workers and, as a result, improves the quality of youth work that YDP apprentices offer to the young people, young adults in YouthBuild Programs and the younger people that programs serve through community service programs.The program is also designed to increase Staff retention at YouthBuild Programs.

Youth on Board prepares young people to be leaders and decision makers in their communities, and strengthens relationships between youth and adults through publications, customized workshops, and technical assistance.

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, there was an intense desire from the YouthBuild network of organizations, staff, and youth to use our resources and housing construction expertise to assist the hurricane victims and their communities. The YouthBuild network, recognizing that it is a unique national resource for rebuilding communities, decided to help rebuild the disaster area.

Going forward, YouthBuild USA will be investing in efforts to secure the future of the YouthBuild movement by improving the movement’s ability to capture and communicate the impact it is having in the lives of young people and in the development of local communities. We will accomplish this by signifi cantly improving the YouthBuild network’s ability to track and analyze the outcomes that best tell the story of our effectiveness and of our commitment to continually improve the quality of each and every YouthBuild program. Equally important, YouthBuild USA will be collecting regular feedback from the fi eld on the quality, relevance and impact of the services we provide.

A division of YouthBuild USA, YouthBuild International is a Somerville, Massachusetts-based international non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides technical assistance, training, consultation, capacity-building grants, and other resources to governments, schools, NGOs, and youth groups in the areas of workforce development, youth leadership and civic engagement, housing construction, youth policy, program design, project management, school reform, criminal justice reform, and community revitalization. YouthBuild International is engaged with youth programs in South Africa, Serbia, Mexico, and Canada.

The YouthBuild Rural & Tribal Development Initiative was formally launched in 2007 to link the work of two previously separate, but related Initiatives: the Rural Initiative and the Tribal Initiative.