When students are involved in the decisions that affect their schools, they feel more connected to their own school and to the educational system overall. What's more, they learn skills and work in partnership with teachers and administrators to improve places of learning.

The San Francisco Civic Action Innovation Fund (SF-CAIF) creates new ways for middle-school and high-school students to be heard on issues that are important to them. SF-CAIF engages students in decision-making at their own school sites and at the school-district level, and also supports young people's action plans for bringing about change in their schools and communities. A collaboration between YLI, Infusion One and the San Francisco Youth Commission, SF-CAIF achieves these objectives by:

• Organizing student-led dialogue, research and evaluation to identify issues students care about most and to understand how students can take the lead on these issues;
• Creating strategies for implementing student civic action plans that bring about change throughout San Francisco's public school system; and
• Providing grants to support youth-led action plans.

SF-CAIF is overseen by a youth board with representation from across all 11 supervisorial districts in San Francisco. The youth board makes decisions about SF-CAIF grant awards and provides overall direction to SF-CAIF.

Contact us for more information.

SF-CAIF is made possible by support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The National Service-Learning Partnership and the The Academy for Educational Development.