Students Stand Up

Students Stand Up is an international youth-led organization providing young people with resources to get involved in advocacy and social organizing.

Students Stand Up is an organization run entirely by youth organizers with the goal of helping other young people get their starts in advocacy and organizing efforts. First, civic-minded youth from around the world are made aware of SSU through members of the SSU team, our partners, former participants, and social media. From there, we encourage them to look into and potentially apply to our program, a 6-week curriculum delving into the fundamentals of government, democracy, and everything they need to know as prospective organizers — from the logistics of planning protests to social media content creation. Our curriculum is available to participants in multiple formats so as to accommodate as many learning styles and preferences as possible. These formats primarily include live lessons, asynchronous slideshows, and interactive asynchronous lessons. Finally, upon completion of the curriculum, participants are “matched” with our partner organizations who represent a wide variety of issue areas, and are also encouraged to join the SSU team itself.

When I was initially trying to get involved with advocacy, I found it extremely difficult to both find organizations to join and to organize well once I joined them. Through meeting other young organizers in the years since, I’ve come across a similar sentiment; most young people take part in advocacy efforts because they feel it’s important for them to do so. However, the sense of helplessness that often comes with being young and facing huge issues such as discrimination or environmental degradation is only exacerbated by not knowing where to start when getting involved. With the myriad of issues directly impacting today’s youth, I felt it pertinent to create a more streamlined pathway for kids like myself to get involved in their communities, which quickly developed into SSU.

SSU serves young people from around the world who are looking to get involved in their communities, but may not know where to start or have the resources to learn the ropes of advocacy work and governmental functions. So far, we’ve already been able to impact the lives of the 50+ kids who have completed SSU and gone on to work with our partner organizations on issues they’re passionate about; we continually receive feedback following completion of the program and even of individual lessons that simply being more educated on the fundamentals of democracy and advocacy is an understandably empowering experience. After completing SSU, they have the opportunity to easily join organizations that align with their interests and passions, and to influence change in their communities.

As someone who was in the exact position of our participants just a few years ago, I and everyone on the SSU team understand firsthand how difficult it can be to get started in advocacy. We’ve also made an effort to reexamine our own experiences and piece together what would have been beneficial to know before starting. Additionally, we send out optional feedback forms following every unit of our curriculum and at the end of it so that participants have the opportunity to share what they enjoy about the program in addition to what could be improved upon.

So far, we’ve been able to work with over 50 kids from across 5 continents, and have been able to expand our team from 3 to 12 core members. We’ve also been able to reach 20+ international partner organizations across a variety of issue areas with whom participants can be matched, and significantly grown our social media followings on Instagram and Linkedin, which helps us reach even more prospective applicants. 

Also, please note that while our location is listed as Minneapolis, my area of residence, we're a completely digital organization!

One of the main focuses of our curriculum delivery formats is offering multiple ways to learn so as to accommodate various learning styles. We use presentations through Canva and Zoom, but have found great results especially by using Articulate 360, an online interactive lesson builder. We try to make our lessons as interactive and immersive as possible, and Articulate allows us to create real-life simulations through which our participants can learn the ropes of advocacy. For example, in our crash course on outreach, participants go through a simulation of a call with a potential partner organization, in which they choose the best points to raise in an initial conversation and communicate their goals. Finally, we also use Notion for the bulk of internal organization as well as coordination of our curriculum. Through our participant hub on Notion, participants can easily find all of our lessons, the units they're part of, dates they're delivered on, links to Zoom meetings to watch them live, links to recordings to watch them asynchronously, and links to the interactive lessons on Articulate (they only have to complete the lesson in one form!). Notion's table databases allow us to display all of this information in an easily accessible and understandable manner, which is extremely valuable to make sure that communication and coordination with the participants is as clear as possible!

Currently, we have served our 52 former participants.

Within the next year, we are aiming to serve at least 150 additional participants.

We currently have an Instagram following of 220 and a LinkedIn following of 46 (we created a LinkedIn profile in December 2021, hence the smaller figure); we hope to grow these to 500 and 100 respectively. Our social media platforms are primarily for educating young people outside of our curriculum, with more of a focus on current events.

Our team is currently comprised of 12 core members, and we would like to expand that number to 20 by 2023.

Our goals for the next year are to expand our geographic reach and serve at least 100 more students. We are also looking to add partner organizations, specifically more localized partner organizations, so as to provide a wider variety of potential organizations with which participants can be matched. We're looking to expand our team and grow our followings on social media to increase our reach as much as possible; our primary approaches for these are allocating some funding towards social media to reach more people, continually editing our curriculum based on feedback so that every participant can have a positive experience, and expanding our curriculum development team into 3 additional timezones to better accommodate live lessons for participants who benefit from live learning experiences.

We plan to continue using feedback from participants to improve upon our existing curriculum. We generally measure our reach through metrics such as our applicant and participant numbers and social media followings, but are also looking to factor in more geographic factors in the coming year. Among the indicators of the UN's education sustainable development goals is increasing the number of youth and adults with real-world skills that can be used to gain employment, and this is exactly what SSU seeks to do. We also take that a step further by matching our participants with relevant organizations after completing their education.

The main barriers right now are related to finances; while we apply for Civics 2030 funding through Civics Unplugged when needed (generally twice a year), we are looking to expand beyond a single primary donor. We've accomplished this in part through the past year by connecting with one-time grants that support our work, but want to establish a more sustainable source of income. 

We have also been struggling with finances in the realm of nonprofit management as SSU's unique situation makes it difficult for us to choose between registering as a 501(c)3, 501(c)4, LLC, or other kind of recognized NGO. However, we have been in contact with potential fiscal sponsor organizations that would potentially coordinate nonprofit status and taxes on our behalf (Hack Club Bank).

Everyone on the team is either an experienced organizer themself with organizations from around the world, or a former participant in SSU's program itself. Through learning about and/or working firsthand in advocacy, our team members are extremely well-equipped to help others take the first steps in their organizing journeys. Additionally, everyone on our team is between the ages of 14 and 24, with most still being high school-aged. This makes it even easier for us to work with the 12-19 year old demographic we target as it's natural to connect with them on a personal level and get to know them as friends even more than as colleagues. Our team is also representative of a variety of geographic regions, races, gender identities, and sexualities, which is mirrored by our participants. Team members also represent a wide variety of issues they work on in advocacy, and participants are encouraged to reach out and ask questions about certain fields they're interested in. As previously mentioned, we also send out regular feedback surveys to gain insight into anything participants enjoy or do not enjoy about certain stages of the curriculum and edit it appropriately.

Funding Partners

Civics Unplugged

GripTape Learning

VELA Education Fund

Advocacy Partners (organizations that can be joined upon completion)

One Up Action

The Period Society

Students for Open Primaries

DICCE

Civics Unplugged

Future Coalition

Meddling Kids Movement

Fridays for Future USA

Dream Equal

Youthivism

Teens Resist

Diversify Our Narrative

As a 16-year-old girl who started getting involved with advocacy at 12, I understand firsthand how difficult it can be to speak up and stand up, and the frustration of being underestimated because of my age and gender. This was especially overwhelming considering the scope of issues I was passionate about such as climate change, and the difficulty I faced trying to find out how to get involved. It's largely these experiences that shaped me into the person I am today, and that inspired me to start Students Stand Up. SSU is an international, youth-led organization for which I'm the founder and executive director. Our entire mission is dedicating time and resources to helping young people from around the world get involved in their communities, and empowering them to make sustainable, long-lasting change. This is done primarily through a civics and advocacy crash course curriculum that our participants take before being matched with our partner organizations, including gender equality and environmental justice-centric groups, that suit their passions and interests. We'd use the HP Girls Save the World Prize to expand our network even further through social media and partnership outreach campaigns to reach as many young people as possible from around the world, and help them engage in their communities. I know that if I had had access to an organization such as SSU when I was first getting involved, it would have been much easier to keep my head up and continue to speak up despite cultural and societal pressures to the contrary, and would love for the HP Girls Save the World Prize to make it even more accessible to girls around the world in similar situations.

Being a young girl who has been involved with organizing since I was even younger, I know how frustrating it can be to constantly be underestimated because of my age and gender. This became even more overwhelming as I struggled to get involved with my community, which is exactly what led me to start Students Stand Up. SSU is an international, youth-led organization for which I'm the founder and executive director. Our entire goal centers around helping young people from around the world get involved in their communities through increased education and access to education, and empowering them to make a change. This is done primarily through a civics and advocacy crash course curriculum that our participants take before being matched with organizations, including gender equality-centric groups, that suit their passions and interests. Much like with the HP Girls Save the World Prize, we'd use the Pozen Social Innovation Prize to expand our network even further through social media and partnership outreach campaigns to reach as many young people as possible from around the world, and help them engage in their communities. While we don't center around helping young people of any specific gender identity, the vast majority of our participants and team members are female-identifying. I know that if I had had access to an organization like SSU when I was first getting involved, it would have been much easier to keep my head up and continue to speak up despite cultural and societal pressures to the contrary, and would love for the Pozen Social Innovation Prize to make it even more accessible to girls around the world in similar situations.