Strategic Alliance Initiative (2019-2021)

In 2019, IYF set out to create a consortium of youth-led social ventures as part of a new Strategic Alliance Initiative to drive impact and innovation on pressing global issues. While making strides to ensure greater visibility for these organizations, the newly formed Alliance worked to test the market viability of deepening and expanding the most innovative models from our network.

The model for the Alliance built on IYF's work over the last two decades to nurture young leaders as they tackled urgent social challenges and worked to grow their ventures into impactful, sustainable forces for good. Through IYF’s YouthActionNet® initiative, more than 2,000 young social entrepreneurs received leadership and capacity building training, access to networks, and connections to a community of peers. 

In October 2020, IYF partnered with members of the Strategic Alliance to create Our Future, Our Voices: A Virtual Summit By, For, and With Young People. Other Alliance members joined the Summit as panelists and content contributors. During the five-day event, young people from around the world gathered to share insights and lead conversations about the future they want to create. Visit IYF's Our Future, Our Voices YouTube playlist to access full summit content. 

The original plan for the Strategic Alliiance Initiative sought to engage 37 organizations from 20 countries to work on an array of issue areas including health, environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and education. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020,  IYF redesigned the initiative into the Global Youth Resiliency Fund (GYRF).

The primary objective of GYRF is to support young social entrepreneurs, community leaders, and change makers who are taking on many of the issues created by the COVID-19 crisis around the world.

Learn more about the Strategic Alliance ventures.