Action Plan
An Action Plan is a resource to plan and launch a successful Venture. Young people who do not participate in the YV Challenge but apply to become a Venturer through our website will be required to write an Action Plan. The Action Plan is structured to help you think through your community-benefiting idea and form it into a successful Venture (an ongoing organization that positively impacts the community). You can access the Action Plan here .
Ally
An Ally is an individual who enjoys working directly with young people and who respectfully helps and supports Venturers – without taking over. Allies help teams think through their Venture idea and provide advice and support throughout the Venture, while always leaving the youth in charge. Allies are generally adults, although some teams choose youth Allies.
Ambassador
An Ambassador is a current or former Venturer who promotes Youth Venture in his or her school and/or broader community. Ambassadors also advise young people in their region on how to start their own Ventures and assist existing Venture Teams. Because the Youth Venture movement is spread most effectively from one youth to another, the role of Ambassadors is very important.
Ashoka
Youth Venture was started by Ashoka, the oldest, largest and fastest growing association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs are people with ideas that solve some of the world’s biggest, most difficult problems. They are like business entrepreneurs who pioneer new industries or ways of doing things, except social entrepreneurs are motivated by their desire to create positive social change on a massive scale. Ashoka invests in social entrepreneurs and helps them start their ventures, many of which have led to social change around the globe. They become Ashoka Fellows, and they are part of the Ashoka fellowship, where they can learn from and collaborate with each other, for life. Like Venturers, these social entrepreneurs tackle problems in all areas of need: the environment, health, learning, human rights, civic engagement, economic development, etc. It takes a while longer to become an Ashoka Fellow, though – many Ashoka Fellows devote their entire lives to developing their system-changing ideas and creating global change. To find out more about Ashoka Fellows and read their ideas, click here .
Changemaker
Anyone who sees a problem in his/her world and takes initiative to solve that problem.
Community
Community can be thought of in a very local sense, such as a college or a neighborhood, or it can be thought of in a very broad sense, such as all of society or the world. Youth Venture defines community however youth define it for themselves.
Conditions
In the process of being accepted as an official Youth Venture Team, a team may meet all the Youth Venture Selection Criteria and may be accepted as ready to launch, or a team may be accepted with certain conditions that the Selection Panel feels they need to address before launching. When the Team meets these conditions they will officially launch their Venture.
Entrepreneur *
One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.
Seed Funding
Funding that supports a new concept or project in the early stages of its development. Youth Venture provides seed funding to Youth Venture Teams to launch their Venture ideas.
Selection Panel
After completing the YV Challenge workshops or an online Action Plan, Venturers are asked to give a ten-minute presentation before a Selection Panel. A Selection Panel is a group of youth and adult community members who listen to team presentations, ask questions, and see if the team’s plans meet the Youth Venture Selection Criteria. Selection Panels help ensure teams have strong plans and are ready to move to the next step of launching as a Youth Venture Team. Selection Panels also help determine the amount of seed funding needed to launch the Venture.
Social Entrepreneur **
Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.
Venture
A Venture is a sustainable club, organization, or business created and launched by a young person to make a difference in his/her community.
Youth Venturer
A Venturer is a young person between the ages of 17 and 24 who sees a problem affecting his/her community, has an idea for how to change the problem and create a positive solution, and organizes a team of young people to work to improve their community.
Youth Venture
Youth Venture invests in the ideas and capacity of youth ages 17-24 to build a global movement of young changemakers. Youth Venture’s vision is a world of everyone a changemaker through a global culture of young people initiating positive, lasting change. Youth Venture’s mission is to build a global movement of young people being powerful now, changemakers now. This is the foundation for an everyone a changemaker world, the key factor for success for every society, organization, and person.
* from Merriam-Webster online: www.m-w.com
** from www.ashoka.org
© Youth Venture, 2007. All rights reserved.