Student Voice Invests in the Future of Youth Leadership through Six-Figure Donation to Kentucky Student Voice Team

After more than a decade of youth leadership in the education justice movement, Student Voice will sunset national programming and transfer their assets—including a six-figure donation—to the Kentucky Student Voice Team.

Following deep reflection, and in partnership with the Student Voice Board of Directors, this decision embodies years of learnings about sustainability in youth-led organizations. While we believe youth leaders can and should be engaged in the highest level of operating a nonprofit, we also know they should not have to shoulder the burden of addressing generations-long inequities without intergenerational support.

From our unique vantage point, we have seen hundreds of models of youth leadership across the country, each with their own strengths and limitations. The Kentucky Student Voice team is built to last and carry on the legacy of Student Voice.

Founded in the same week of 2012, Student Voice and the Kentucky Student Voice Team (KSVT) have been distinct but deeply intertwined forces in the youth-led education justice movement, collaborating on dozens of major initiatives and campaigns. 

Collectively, we have advanced the field of student leadership—Student Voice through its nationwide network of youth organizers, storytellers, and partners, and KSVT through a durable, Kentucky-based model that continues to influence peers and intergenerational leaders across the U.S.

These joint efforts have responded to defining education challenges of the past decade, including:

• Expanding college access (Test Optional Now)
• Shaping school reopening during the pandemic (Move School Forward)
• Elevating student participation in school governance (Our Schools, Our Boards, Our Election)
• Embedding youth representation in state and federal education policy (Start With Students and Students as Partners)
• Defending students’ rights to free expression (Save Student Speech)

That legacy has extended to the support of thousands of youth organizers across the country, resulting in a cultural shift in both education and philanthropy. Youth voices that were once treated as a marketing tool are now drivers of justice in our schools and communities: 

• Local and state boards of education across the country are appointing student members, supported by the National Student Board Member Association.
• Articles about schools increasingly feature student authors—including those from KSVT’s newsroom, The New Edu, and Student Voice’s former Journalism Fellowship. 
• Education conferences more routinely feature student speakers and panels, many through Seek Common Ground’s Student Action Network for Equity, which connects youth-led organizations across the country through virtual and in-person programming. 

In order to ensure that the lessons, tools and momentum built by Student Voice continue to have an impact, KSVT will establish the Future Fund. The Future Fund will sustain the next generation of youth-led education organizing locally, allow for cross-state collaborations, and ensure KSVT has the capacity to continue coaching adult leaders in youth engagement strategies from coast to coast. As part of this transition KSVT will preserve and share Student Voice’s digital archive at stuvoice.org, making its tools, curricula, and case studies widely and permanently available to the public.

KSVT is uniquely positioned to carry this legacy forward. Their work leading statewide youth- participatory research, providing independent education journalism through The New Edu, suing the state for students’ constitutional right to an adequate education, and reimagining school climate through student-led audits, exemplifies what it means to center students as full partners in educational transformation.

These changes affirm what we’ve always known to be true: student perspectives are an essential yet too often overlooked resource in building just, democratic schools.

At a moment when public education faces unprecedented attacks and our democracy feels especially fragile, we find hope in young people picking up the baton and carrying on the fight for the schools and communities they deserve. They remind us that student voice isn’t a moment—it’s a movement. And that movement is far from over.

As a youth-led, intergenerationally sustained organization rooted in Kentucky and resonating nationally, the Kentucky Student Voice Team will continue to build on this legacy—ensuring that young people are not only included in school and civic life but are recognized as the essential partners they have always been.

You can support the future of this work through a contribution directly to the Kentucky Student Voice Team.