Pick an issue that you care about and want to work to address.
Remember to think globally & act locally. For example, you may want to address global climate change. Think about what actions you can take locally to have an impact. When you engage candidates and elected officials, pay special attention to your local and state level politicians.
You can find information, links & resources on our Issues Wiki.
Some issues to consider:
Education & Youth Development Mentoring Tutoring K-12 Education Higher Education After School Programs Family Support
Environment Global Warming Going Green Land & Animal Conservation Recycling Endangered Species
Health Care Family Health Care Teen Health Issues HIV/AIDS Mental & Physical Health
Economy & Employment Taxes Large & Small Businesses Employment Rates Stock Market Real Estate
Poverty, Hunger, & Homelessness Foreclosure Crisis Hunger Poverty Children & Families in Poverty Job Opportunities
Civil Rights & Liberties Racial Discrimination Sexual Orientation Gender Roles Religion & Faith
Senior Citizens Medicare Social Security Retirement Plans
Violence & Crime Control Domestic Violence School Violence Gang Violence Public Safety & Crime Control Justice System
Disaster Prevention & Relief Disaster Preparedness Katrina Relief Action China Earthquake Relief Efforts National Relief Supporter
National Security & Defense Homeland Security Iraq War Afghan War Veterans Support Our Troops Peacekeeping International Relations
Global Citizenship & Cooperation Human Rights Child Labor Genocide Culture Awareness Role of the UN
Immigration Assimilation Eligibility for Illegal Immigrants Education for Immigrant Youth
Step 2: Make and share your Action Plan.
Make your action plan.
Make a plan to address this issue in multiple ways – through service activities, electoral activities, political activities, and education activities.
Choose 1 or 2 action steps from each category below (service, electoral, political, education).
At the bottom of this page, there is a form that you can fill out to keep track of your plan. When you submit the form, you'll get a copy of it so you can see your plan, and we'll get a copy too.
Share your action plan.
When you submit the form below, your project will be viewable in our online project database.
If you want, you can also post a message in the Discussion Forum to get comments and ideas from other people.
Step 3: Take action - and share your success!
Put your plan into ACTION!
Check out the links & resources below to help you implement your Action Plan.
The lists below have TONS of links to sites, organizations, and resources that can help you in every part of your plan. (It's LONG, we know, but it's well worth your time to check it out!)
Search for volunteer opportunities on the following websites. Most of these sites have the option of searching by topic or issue, so you can search for volunteer opportunities addressing the issue you care about. (If you don’t find opportunities in your area on one, try the others – each website includes different opportunities.)
Participate in or organize a community service or service-learning project.
Plan a service project in your community to address the issue that you care about. The following resources will help you in organizing your project.
Project Plan-It - Project Plan-It! is an easy interactive series of questions and templates that allow you and your friends to plan your service project or program. At the end, you will be able to print out your own project plan, funding proposal, press release, service-learning reflection plan, and other helpful resources.
Global Youth Service Day - Millions of youth participate in Global Youth Service Day, the largest service event in the world. They tutor young children, engage in disaster relief, register new voters, educate their communities about good nutrition, distribute HIV/AIDs prevention materials and meet many more community needs through their service. Global Youth Service Day supports youth on a life-long path of service and civic engagement, and educates the public, the media, and elected officials about the role of youth as community leaders.
This comprehensive guide will help you plan your project, recruit volunteers, generate media attention, raise funds, and more. While the following resources were developed for Global Youth Service Day, they can be used to plan a service project at any time of the year.
Raise and/or donate money to a charitable organization.
Donate to a charitable organization that works on the issue you care about. Here are some places to find organizations to and to make donating easier:
Charity Navigator - Your Guide to Intelligent Giving - Charity Navigator provides a listing of reputable charities to donate to, searchable by issue area.
Case Foundation's Guide to Good Giving - Whether you shop with a purpose, volunteer on vacation, or honor someone with a donation to a cause they care about, giving has never been so easy, so fun, and so meaningful. Explore the Case Foundation’s Guide to Good Giving, and make giving a part of living.
Facebook Causes - Make a difference, on Facebook. Causes on Facebook lets you start and join the causes you care about. Donations to causes can benefit over a million registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits and major presidential campaigns
Join a group or organization that you can address the issue you care about with. If you're already a part of an organization, work with the group to plan activities to address the issue you care about.
If you're in school, there are many student organizations. Here are some national organizations that might have a local chapter in your school. All of these organizations engage students in service around critical issues. The links below bring you to a page to search for local chapters. There are probably other organizations in your school not listed here. Ask your teachers or administrators about organizations in your school.
If you're in college, most campuses have a wide variety of student clubs & organizations. Your college website should have a directory of student organizations.
To find community groups in your area, you can use a print or online telephone directory (try a "community organizations" category search. Your school or community library (and librarians) can also be helpful in your search.
No group out there that is working on what you'd like to work on? Start your own.
Guide to Starting a Youth Program - This guide is for you if you dream of starting your own nonprofit organization to give young people in your community better opportunities, but don't know where to begin. There are many resources (a wealth of them online) that can help you navigate how to start and manage a nonprofit organization that serves youth and their families. Rather than duplicate information that's already out there, this guide attempts to put you on the right track by guiding you to Web sites written just for grassroots organizers and youth service professionals.
Youth Venture - Youth Venture inspires and invests in teams of young people to design and launch their own lasting social ventures, enabling them to have this transformative experience of leading positive social change. Venturers start businesses, civil society organizations and informal programs that address all kinds of social issues, including poverty, health, the elderly, the environment, education, diversity issues, and the arts. Youth Venture helps our Venturers through this process of designing and launching their ventures, providing guidance, how-to’s, and a process for designing and pitching a venture idea.
Youth Action Net - YouthActionNet™ is a program that invests in the power and promise of young people to create positive change. Through its global and national-level fellowship programs, customized trainings, dynamic website and peer-to-peer learning opportunities, YouthActionNet™ offers young change makers ideas, resources, and connections to like minds around the world.
Activism Network & Campus Activism - This interactive website has tools for progressive activists. It is part of a network of websites that share information called the Activism Network. We built it, but you must provide the content. You can use it to start a campaign, share activism resources, publicize events, and build networks. Or you can join an existing campaign, get resources, learn about upcoming activist events, and let people find you.
Raise Your Voice: Student Action For Change - The Raise Your Voice Campaign, an initiative of Campus Compact, has connected over 300,000 students across the country on over 450 campuses to support student civic engagement and address public issues crucial to our democracy. This site is dedicated to connecting, challenging, and supporting college and university students in community work, activism, leadership, and civic growth. Here you will find practical information, ideas, and resources, as well as a forum for sharing ideas
Mobilize.org Mobilizer Teams - A Mobilizer team is a group of young people, of any size, who are working together to increase our generation’s involvement in the political process. A team can be as small as a couple friends grabbing coffee near a college or twenty teens hanging out at school during lunch. All that is needed is a few young people interested in making our world a better place through increasing civic conversation and political engagement
Organize online.
Change.org - Connect to people who care about the same issues. Users can create virtual organizations around social issues, called "Changes," to share ideas and organize collective action. Discover and engage with nonprofit organizations. We host social networks for 1.5 million nonprofits, allowing people to directly communicate with leading organizations. Make a difference by donating and taking action with others. Fundraise for projects around the world, volunteer with friends, or join online advocacy campaigns.
Youth Noise - YN is a social networking site for people under the age of 27 who like to connect based on deeper interests than Paris Hilton's wardrobe and want to get engaged within a cause. Find a cause, search for friends, and get involved. Want to free Tibet? Passionate about human rights? Whatever your cause, network it here.
Taking IT Global - TakingITGlobal.org is an online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities. It's the world's most popular online community for young people interested in making a difference, with hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month. TIG's highly interactive website provides a platform for expression, connection to opportunities, and support for action. Join now and connect with thousands of other young people around the world!
Community organizing is a big concept and depending on what you want to accomplish, might include other action steps from starting an organization to petitioning to contacting the media. Use the resourcse on this site to help you.
Volunteer for a campaign and/or become active in a political party.
When you find a candidate that shares your views on the issue you care about, volunteer for their campaign. Volunteer. Donate money. Help spread the word with buttons, t-shirts, web banners, lawn signs, etc. All campaigns - local, state, and national - all need volunteers for a wide variety of tasks from going door-knocking to phone banking to stuffing envelopes. Almost all candidates also belong to a political party (usually the Democratic or Republican parties.) Volunteering and becoming active with a political party is a good way to support more than one campaign at a time.
Visit the candidate's website. (If you don't know what it is, just Google their name.) Almost all candidates have a website and most have ways to get involved and volunteer. Usually, there are options to take action both online and in-person. Links to the volunteer pages of the presidential campaigns and political parties. Call the campaign office.
Engage candidates on the issues you care about. Remember, you hold the power in a political campaign - your vote! Candidates want to hear from you about what you care about because they want you to vote for them.
Attend a campaign event. Search candidate websites for their schedules. Many websites provide the option to sign up for updates to receive e-mail updates including when the candidate will be visiting your area. Consider using the New Voters Project What's Your Plan? framework.
Host a candidate event. There are a wide variety of formats for events - debates, forums, fairs, and service stops. Another option is to invite the candidate to an event that's already happening, like a service project, and provide time for them to speak briefly and answer questions from participants.
Help educate your fellow voters about the issues you care about.
Candidate questionnaires/surveys, pledges & voting guides. Send candidates a questionnaire or survey about an issue. Ask them to make a pledge on your issue. Publish their responses and other information in a voting guide.
theballot.org - Find a voter guide for your area, or create your own guide that other people can use. It's easy. So get started!
More Perfect - This voter's guide is unlike traditional voter's guides. This guide is created by the people, for the people. Why rely on the voter's guides prepared by each campaign when you can create your own!
Wiki the Vote - Here you'll find profiles on candidates for Congress, coverage of the elections, listings of local blogs for each state and informal groups of citizen editors who are working together to improve and expand related articles. You can participate by adding information into these editable articles for your fellow citizens to read.
See Candidate Questionnaire & Voter Guides section of the Voter Education Toolbox. (This guide is for nonprofits, so some of the rules mentioned may not apply to you as an individual.)
Publish legislative scorecards and voting records. These show how current elected officials have voted on bills related to a particular issue.
Do your research with the Youth Policy Action Center Vote Tracker
See the Legislative Scorecards & Voting Records section of the Voter Education Toolbox. (This guide is for nonprofits, so some of the rules mentioned may not apply to you as an individual.)
Issue advocacy
youchoose.net - Create a campaign for a Pledge or a Vote.
See the Issue Advocacy section of the Voter Education Toolbox. (This guide is for nonprofits, so some of the rules mentioned may not apply to you as an individual.)
Debate Watches
Hosting a Debate Watch (Some of this inforamtion is still from 2004, but the tips are still good!)
Attend public meetings. This can be especially effective at the local level - visit your school board or city council meeting. Many public meetings have a "public forum" time on the agenda when citizens can speak.
Attend events they will be at. Search for their public schedules on their websites or in newspapers.
Track the bills and legislation being proposed and worked on. At the state and local level, government websites are the places to look for this information. At the federal level, use the following resources:
Contact the media to spread your message about the issue you care about. Write an opinion/editoral or letter to the editor. Call in to a radio talk show. Ask the print or broadcast media to cover your work.
GYSD Public Relations Guide (While these materials were developed for Global Youth Service Day, the information is valuable for working with the media for any reason.)
There are also many opportunities to generate and share your own content online.
QuantumShiftTV - QuantumShift TV is a web video network focused on solutions, from global warming to human rights, education to economics, medicine, technology, design, and more. With both original and user-generated content from socially-responsible businesses, non-profits, and independent producers, QuantumShift TV helps you to be the change and share the story
OnDayOne - On Day One is a platform for gathering and sharing your ideas about what the next president can do on the first day of his or her administration to help address the world's most pressing challenges.
Protest, Petitions, Boycotts & Buycotts
Protests, petitions, boycotts, and buycotts are all traditional ways to bring attention to an issue you care about.
While you're taking on a leadership role whenever you're taking action on an issue you care about, it's important to look for opportunities to take on a formal leadership position. Some possibilities include:
Student government - most high schools and colleges & universities have student government organizations.
Youth advisory boards or councils - many government, business, and nonprofit organizations have youth advisory boards or councils to help them gather input and make decisions. For more information, visit At the Table: Youth Voices in Decision Making or Youth On Board
Boards, councils, or commissions - Government at all levels have MANY, MANY boards, councils & commissions. These can be relatively easy to join or be appointed to and make a big difference, especially at the local level. Visit your city's website or your state's Secretary of State website to find out more.
Run for office yourself! You may need to be 25 to run for some offices (and 35 to run for President) but there are LOTS of offices that you can run for at 18 or 21. Visit Young Politicians of America for more information.
Get informed.
Before taking any action, it's important to read and follow the news and to know how "the system" works and the latest news on the issue you care about.
Read the news. Read your local newspaper, listen to news stations like NPR on the radio, watch news on televison, or read news online like CNN , MSNBC, FOX News, TIME, Newsweek , or US News .
Know your issue. Read the latest news on related organizations' websites. Create a Google Alert to send you news about your issue. Browse our Issue area for more information.
