21 Feb 2021
The Power of Youth Explained is a six-part series of short interactive, digital articles curated by #iwill partner organisations and Ambassadors. The series aims to bring together research, experiences and resources that not only develops the readers’ knowledge and understanding of youth social action, but helps them turn it into action. They are also designed to help your organisation put your Power of Youth Charter commitments into practice.
ARTICLE 5:
How can your organisation best understand and celebrate the positive impact youth social action can have?

Nickael Briggs, the Lead teacher of First Give at Ark Acton Academy
A LETTER FROM THE CURATORS:
Welcome to Explained: Celebrating Impact!
Celebrating and recognising the impact young people are making is a crucial part of creating successful and high quality social action opportunities.
But getting this right often comes alongside a lot of questions – how do we differentiate between incentives and celebration? What about celebration for celebration’s sake? Who are we actually celebrating at celebration events? Do we even need celebration!?
In this article the curators – First Give and #iwill Ambassador Lizzie Beale – have drawn on their knowledge and experience to give you food for thought, practical guidance and case studies to help you explore this knotty topic. This is article 5, so make sure to check out the rest of the Explained series to give you more advice on everything from youth voice to accessibility. Enjoy, and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out!
VIEWPOINT: Celebrating Who?
#iwill Ambassador Lizzie Beale
Before we know how we can celebrate the difference youth social action is having, we need to ask ourselves why this is important, and what do we want to achieve by doing so. Knowing the answer to those two questions will help us to understand whether we’re celebrating the individuals (through awards, certificates, presentation evenings), or we’re helping to bring recognition to the impact a cohort of young people are having to a movement or cause (through reports, social media, press releases).

My social action journey began in school, I didn’t embark on it knowing there was any kind of reward I could receive for doing so. I started because a teacher inspired me, and made me believe, I had the power to make a difference. She clearly believed in what young people could achieve through social action. Not everyone in my life, was quite as convinced as her though.
TAKE A LOOK AT THE LANDSCAPE
Findings from the 2020 #iwill partner survey show that three quarters of organisations are already celebrating young people, however the National Youth Social Action survey gives us more insight into how young people might be viewing and receiving this celebration. Take a look at the below:
76% of #iwill campaign partners say they are celebrating the impact young people are making.
In 2019 , a decrease was noted in the proportion of young people who agreed that they were recognised for the difference they made by taking part in social action.
The 2019 National Youth Social Action survey also suggested that young people from affluent backgrounds are more likely to strongly agree/agree with the statement ‘I was recognised for the difference I made, for example through a ceremony, certificate or award’ than those from less affluent backgrounds.
ACROSS THE SECTORS
Being accessible and inclusive is crucial regardless of which sector you’re in, check out the below examples and resources to see why and how:
VIEWPOINT: Incentivisation vs. Celebration? Confronting the Knotty Topic
Isaac Jones, First Give
We’ve all been in that meeting where we plan our annual celebration event. In most cases we do what we’ve always done. Probably try to emulate an Oscars Award ceremony. See if we can get a celebrity involved. Almost certainly cherry pick some of the young people who have been involved in our work to showcase as examples. A significant investment of the organisation’s time and resource is poured into the planning of a glitzy evening for funders to celebrate!
Obviously these events have other, very necessary purposes. But it makes me wonder what we actually mean by celebrating young people?

To my mind there are two main pitfalls that we can drop into when we try to celebrate the young people we work with and for. The first is the risk of incentivising participation with extrinsic benefits, like certificates, awards or even prizes. The second is that we celebrate and lift up a small number of individuals to the detriment of the many others doing great work.