Future Generation Global

The STORY

Future Generation makes a promise. Every year it gives away 1% of the money it manages to organisations that support children and young people. When it planned its latest funding round, it asked a question that rarely gets asked at this stage: what would young people choose?

They came to us before applications opened. We took the question to our National Youth Collective, and 25 members built their own way of assessing the shortlist, interviewed every applicant and wrote the advice that went to Future Generation's panel.

The challenge: where we started

Funding decisions about children are usually made by adults, working from paper. Future Generation had a shortlist of 28 organisations to weigh, and it wanted one more piece of evidence: how those organisations look to the young people they say they serve.

The risk with any youth advisory is that it turns into a tick-box. This one needed real responsibility, a method young people trusted and direct conversations with the people running the organisations. And it needed to give the panel advice it could actually use.

The solution: our approach

We gave young people the job and the support to do it properly.

1. Young people designed the method. Seven Collective members formed a Design Team and built the assessment approach themselves.
2. Everyone read and assessed. Another 18 members formed assessment teams of four or five. They read applications, met, and gave feedback using the Design Team's approach, each team led by a Design Team member.
3. Young people interviewed the leaders. The Design Team interviewed all 28 shortlisted applicants in 30-minute video calls. For once, the young people were the ones asking the questions.
4. Feedback in a simple shape. Every assessor sorted their notes into what they liked, what they wished for and what they wondered, and flagged any red flags or must-fund flags.
5. A report the panel could use. The Design Team collated every assessment, debated them and wrote recommendations, which went to Future Generation on 30 June 2025.

The difference it made: our impact

The panel got a perspective it could not have found on paper, and everyone in the room felt the shift.

• The panel heard a clear verdict. The report set out what young people valued, where they had questions and which organisations they recommended: 15 of the 28, with 8 highly recommended.
• Young people were clear about what matters. They backed organisations that put relationships at the core, showed long-term commitment, weaved lived experience through their boards and staff, and spoke about young people and their communities with respect.
• Organisations were challenged, and listened. Applicants answered questions from young people about their own work, a reversal of the usual power dynamic. Some took ideas from those interviews back to their teams and reconsidered how they deliver services.
• Young people grew. They gained a strong sense of agency, a deeper understanding of how child and youth organisations work, and a closer look at different cultural approaches, especially in Aboriginal-run organisations. They applied their critical thinking to real decisions, and several told us it widened the careers they could imagine.
• A recommendation for the future. The group recommended that Future Generation keep a youth advisory as part of its process, and that organisations be able to hire the Collective as paid consultants for detailed feedback on how child-friendly they are.

Key numbers and voices