Beloved Friends and Family,
It is with a full and grateful heart that I share the news of my transition from my role as Executive Director of Youth Speaks. Serving in this capacity has been one of the greatest honors of my life, and as I reflect on my journey, I am overwhelmed with appreciation for the many people who have walked alongside me.
Do you remember the letter I wrote three years ago?
It was my first letter as Executive Director. I made a commitment in that letter to lead Youth Speaks into its next era of purpose for a new generation of poets and storytellers. Together, over three transformative years, we’ve accomplished so, so much. I also wrote about the beginning of my twenty-two-year journey, and my first time stepping onto a Youth Speaks stage–a young Korean American girl who wrote poems about voice, identity, power, and imagination because those were the things I longed most to see and understand in myself.
That journey came to its fulfillment in my tenure here at Youth Speaks.
New Home for Youth Speaks
I’m proud to have carried forward the visionary work started by my predecessor and friend, Cristy Johnston Limón, during the pandemic. In June 2022, we opened the doors to our new 4,265 square-foot shared office and performance space at Casa Adelante, half a block from where Youth Speaks first welcomed Bay Area youth nearly three decades ago. Through the dedication of our incredible staff and community partners, the steadfast support of city leaders and our board, and the resilience of our Mission District community, we completed a monumental $2M capital project on the heels of the pandemic. 265 Shotwell stands as a commitment to our community that Youth Speaks will continue to be a safe and brave space dedicated to storytelling and a symbol of creative place-keeping for decades to come.
Investing in Infrastructure and Systems of Care
We’ve made significant strides in living our values, both in how we serve young people and how we operate as an organization. In 2024, we carried out our largest regranting initiative to date and partnered with California Arts Council to distribute $740,000 to artists across Northern California and provided technical assistance to 500 working artists. We leveraged partnerships and networks to deliver crucial resources and expand opportunities for emerging and legacy artists, especially women, femmes and people of color in rural communities. We launched new leadership and narrative fellowship programs (Public Poets and Fluxx Fellowship), with economic incentives to retain Youth Speaks and Brave New Voices alumni in the arts and culture field, even after they’ve aged-out of core programs. We engaged in strategic thinking and with support from key funding-partners, established two new departments (Narrative Change and Field Building and Digital Pedagogy), whose teams have provided 295 hours of narrative change, social media strategy and business workshops. We strengthened our financial infrastructure, built robust reserves, increased base-pay for staff to $70,000, and learned to co-manage our new building.
Powering the Future
We continued to be an incubator for youth culture and a platform that makes revolutionary dreams audible. We launched a $5M, multi-year initiative called Power Lab, inspired by Gen Alpha and Gen Z youth reshaping today’s social change strategies. The new Public Poet Fellowship is a 9-month fellowship program designed to activate a new generation of narrative leaders and public speakers, committed to studying and developing deep narratives to leverage the power of culture to influence policy, combat disinformation, and heal civic trauma. As we look ahead, Public Poets will train youth poets and emerging story-based artists ages 16-26 to act as catalytic shapers of economic, political and cultural change.
All of the above–and much more–is due to our greatest power: a simple yet radical belief that the voices of young people matter and can change the world. In the face of bans against bodies and books, to listen to and amplify the stories of young people of “uncommon” cultures and places brave enough to bring the noise to declare that this world is theirs, is a revolutionary act. I got to do that with you.
It has been an absolute privilege. Thank you for the gift of allowing me to serve thousands of courageous voices in the Youth Speaks and Brave New Voices community with you. My tenure has been a celebration of legacy, of great promise, remarkable renewal, and beautiful struggle. Leadership is ardor and outpouring. I am so proud of what we have done. I am so grateful for my extraordinary staff, board, funders, partners, comrades, alumni, young people, and homies. We have dreamt together, done big things, known the sting of falling short and the sweetness of exceeding expectations. We’ve been the spark in the conversation and the mortar in the brick.
Transitions can feel tricky. The ability to make space for the next ones to lead and grow and move us onward, is also a privilege and honor.
Welcoming the Transition Council
I am thrilled to introduce you to three extraordinary leaders and colleagues, who’ll support the organization during the transition period: Jennifer Lou, HawaH Kasat and Evan Bissell. Jen, HawaH and Evan each come to Youth Speaks with vast experiences leading organizational transitions as nonprofit founders, board members and former interim executive directors of youth development and arts nonprofits in Washington, D.C. and the Bay Area. Over the next few months, Jen, HawaH and Evan will work closely with staff, funders, partners and board to support the organization as a triumvirate council. This approach to shared leadership reflects a deeper understanding we've developed as an organization: that significant transitions, while natural and necessary, are complex changes that deserve to be supported by a collective of advisors and with abundant care. Youth Speaks is in great hands.
HawaH KasatCo-Interim Executive Director
Jennifer LouCo-Interim Executive Director
Evan BissellCo-Interim Executive Director
It’s time for me to pursue new dreams, grateful for my turn in this lovely historical continuum of culture building and culture keeping. My time in the “big chair,” for me, was an extension of my first sound experience, those first exhilarating moments getting free on stage, spilling my heart out in unashamed rivers to the world. I want that feeling for every single young person who walks through our doors, whatever their version of the “big chair” or “big moment” might be one day. The feeling of our world–the one within and around us– becoming infinite and intimate at the same time. Youth Speaks was there for me as I grew from first sound to executive director. Those values we always uphold – voice, identity, power, and imagination – are no longer abstract. We find their life and breath in our staff and scores of Youth Speaks and Brave New Voices alumni ascending into positions of leadership across the country.
Each voice, past and future, sharpens our understanding of who we are. The next poet is the one who reveals new dimensions of who we were, who we are, and who we’ll become.
Let’s get ready to welcome the next poet to the stage.
Yours in gratitude and excitement for what’s to come,
Michelle Mush Lee
