Youth Venture

12096 registered users
1046 registered teams

Every week throughout the school year, mtvU in partnership with Youth Venture will help fund a new student-run community service organization, or a new project being undertaken by an existing organization. If you've got an original idea about how to make the world--or your campus--a better place, mtvU Grants can help you make it happen.

Are you interested in launching your own organization to address issues like global warming, literacy, health issues, civic participation, community and social problems - any problem you can identify mtvU grants can get you started to help find a solution. Act now, find out more!

You could receive:

• Up to $1,000 for your organization.

• An opportunity to be featured on mtvU News.
• Exclusive access to helpful resources and tools in cooperation with Youth Venture, including the opportunity to join a global network of other young changemakers on genV.net.

In order to be eligible for an mtvU Grant, you must complete the mtvU Grant Application and mail it in.

You must have Adobe Reader in order to download it — get it here.

Make sure you read the Official Rules and Criteria Guidelines before applying for a grant.

Once you have the application, fill it out completely and mail it here:

Youth Venture
mtvU grants
1700 North Moore Street
Arlington, VA 22209

Don’t forget–to be eligible for an mtvU Grant, your project/idea must be:

• New

  This means that the Venture as a whole or the specific initiative that the students want funded must not already be in existence. If the program has already been started, it is ineligible.

• Sustainable

  The Venture must be sustainable in terms of membership, leadership, and finances. The Venture should be created with structures in place so it has the potential to outlast its founders. It should not be a short-term project.

• Beneficial

  The Venture must benefit the community– either the student community or the community at large.

Also keep in mind:

• You must be a part or full-time student at an mtvU school to apply for a Grant. Not sure if you attend an mtvU school to apply for the grant. Not sure if you attend an mtvU school? Click here to find out.

• Ventures can be launched on any topic - the environment, health, education, civic engagement, literacy, children, homelessness, poverty –any topic you choose as long as their is a benefit to the community.

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Gumball Capital

Bial, Ellen, Kalvin & Sophia (Stanford University)

Gumball Capital is a nonprofit that inspires entrepreneurship for social impact. The organization sponsors a one-week microfinance-benefit competition, the Gumball Challenge, where students create value from kits of $27 and 27 gumballs. After the competition, students channel any revenue they generate through microfinance institutions, and in turn to entrepreneurs in developing countries. The process empowers students to realize their entrepreneurial potential, while at the same time empower entrepreneurs all over the world.

All For Children’s Art

Dan, Joseph, Patrick, Zach, Nicketti, Margaret, Jenna, Sara, Monica, Erica, Leigh, & Aysedeniz (University of Rochester)

All For Children’s Art is a community program with the purpose to build a bridge between children and the art community; it increases art accessibility and awareness for children in Rochester by raising money through the sale of products designed by children, and creating art resources by organization membership and co-sponsorship. The project involves collecting children’s artwork, printing them onto bags and other media, and selling these products to the public. The money we raise will be put towards a fund for supporting and organizing children’s art events.

Human Rights Live (formerly Affirmative Human Rights Group)

Jeongki, Marie, & Danny (New York University)

Human Rights Live is an organization that transforms the conventional view of human rights as a negative and faraway problem into a positive and essential foundation for everyday activities in everyone's life. We host online video contests that encourage thousands of citizens to upload a 30 second video clip. They film their favorite part of a day and relate it to human rights. The contestants are invited to our global networking website where they can upload, view, and share their pictures and videos celebrating the human rights in their daily lives. We believe we are at a defining moment of our history where humankind has a chance to mend the historic division of 'us' versus 'the others.' The formation of new 'us' can be realized through the activism of 21st century where the people all across the globe interact through new media and realize their common values and hope for human rights--that is freedom for everyone.

Outreach for Advancement of Science and Innovation in School (OASIS)

David & Grace (University of Arizona)

OASIS is organized to better and advance all levels and types of education, particularly among youths. The OASIS team consists of college and graduate students who believe that education is not only important but necessary for students to become thorough thinkers and have competitive careers. OASIS members come from all fields of studies and subjects and hope that in encouraging and engendering more informed and open learners among youths that the future would be more fruitful and compassionate.

Play!

Jenna & Angelica (New York University)

Play! is an organization designed to bring the joys of team sports and the arts into the lives of special needs children. By playing on a baseball team and participating in the creation and production of two performances, these children will have the opportunity to interact with their peers and grow in confidence and expression.

The Solidarity Project

Sarah, Nashmia, Tara, Brandy, Elise, Josephine, Dorrie, Nafisa, Suzanne & Cindy (Bryn Mawr College)

The Solidarity Project brings college students from all Across America together, in the name of preventing violence and standing up for education. The goal is to establish a $10,000 scholarship in the name of each of the 32 Virginia Tech victims. We are raising funds for these scholarships by selling shirts. Eight months ago, we designed a shirt with the logos of 33 Pennsylvanian colleges and universities; and, to date, sales add up to nearly $9,000 in net funds for the cause. Now we are launching the next step extending the campaign into a national movement. We plan to sell a grand total of 50,000 shirts in colleges and universities all across the nation. While this number may seem large, we only need to sell 1/3rd of what was sold in Pennsylvania in each of the remaining 49 states, in order to easily reach and exceed the goal. As current events unfortunately demonstrate, our project is a necessary force that should positively permeate each college campus now. Our immediate goal is to sell shirts as each shirt is a living memory of the tragedy and a powerful protest against future tragedies. In the long run, we seek to condemn violence on campus, promote education, and build a national body of college students dedicated to standing up for humanity.

Education Through the Language of improvised Music (ELIM)

Spencer, Ross, & James (New York University)

ELIM, Education through the Language of Improvised Music, is an organization that consists of seven students that are currently studying at New York University, five of whom traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica, last summer for the Costa Rican International Jazz Festival. This quintet of musicians performed and taught at local schools and theaters to provide the San Jose community with free concerts and master classes. After their trip it was obvious that there was a strong desire for a formal, jazz music education, but currently no such thing existed. The goals of ELIM are to provide young music students in the San Jose area with a free, two-week jazz intensive program that will focus on basic musicianship and basic American jazz performance skills, while building their skills in English. Due to the fact that this is a cross-cultural exchange, we hope to improve their English while improving their musicianship and knowledge of foreign, improvisational music. ELIM also hopes to start an additional program in Kenya before the end of 2008.

CHAMP

Dana & Hannah (New York University)

Chronic Health: Adolescents Making Progress is a program meant to empower young people with chronic illnesses. Our story comes from all different directions coming together onto a single path. Nine years ago Hannah Martin, CHAMP President, was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. At around that same time, a few states away, Dana Sperber, CHAMP VP, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. Through years of coping and adjusting to living with our illnesses we both ended up at separate summer camps pertaining to our respective diseases. Both of us had been involved in the national foundations around our illnesses and helping to fundraise and advocate on that level. This past summer (2007), while Hannah was volunteering as a counselor at Camp Oasis (a summer camp for kids with Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis) she developed a friendship with a fellow counselor who was a member of TALC - The Adolescent Leadership Council, at Brown University. She described the program and how it changed her life - being able to directly help kids and teens going through what she went through, guiding them along a pathway of leadership and success despite the difficulties of living with a chronic illness. It was also during this summer that Hannah and Dana were randomly paired together as suite-mates at NYU. In getting to know each other and being able to relate on the level of illness (in both positive and negative ways), a strong bond was formed. The combination of wanting to take a program like TALC to NYU and the support of each other came together and Hannah and Dana knew it was the right time to pursue action in developing such an amazing organization. We wanted to be the difference; we wanted to be CHAMP.

Bridging the Gap

Orly & Sam (University of Pennsylvania)

Bridging the Gap in an initiative to Foster relationships between the Jewish, Arab, and Muslim communities at Penn. We hope that through cultural events, such as dinners and concerts, alongside dialogue events, such as speaker panels, the communities will form strong and everlasting friendships based on respect and mutual understanding.

Dreams Come True Tour

Mindy, Gerald, Carlos, Joel, Kristi, Tiffany, Ashley, Karla, Lillie, & Shezila (University of Houston)

University of Houston's Dreams Come True Team, a college affiliate of The Keep A Child Alive Chapter will host The "Dreams Come True "tour a Fashion/ Music Benefit educational program that will tour different local public schools and festivals each year in raising awareness about the Aids Epidemic occurring in Africa and Asia. During the program tour, the mediums of music and fashion will communicate different facts and statistics about The Aids Epidemic. The tour will give the public community especially the youth an opportunity to see how they can use their own talent to serve others.

Hayden Hall Sustainability Council

Sam, Anna, Meredith, Adam, & Benjamin (New York University)

We, the Hayden Sustainability Council, aim to make Hayden Hall a more sustainable community through advocacy and initiative, specifically by lessening our environmental footprint. We set out to provide a foundation for the future of our dorm and its residents by instilling a sense of environmental responsibility.