Youth Leadership

Creating Leaders for Today and Tomorrow

Youth Forward serves as the coordinating entity for Sac Kids First, our region’s largest grassroots coalition. We are organizing to win greater investments in youth services in the budget of the city of Sacramento and to increase budget accountability for how the city invests in youth. In 2022, we led a successful ballot measure campaign to establish a Children’s Fund in the city budget. Starting in 2025, the City will invest 40% of the revenue it collects from local cannabis taxes (about $9 million annually) in child and youth services, with a priority given to children and youth most impacted by poverty, violence and trauma. We are currently organizing to ensure that the implementation of the Children’s Fund has the greatest impact possible on children in our city. Youth Forward also supports youth leadership development among native youth in North Sacramento and in three local high schools.