A: Yes! There are several good reasons to trust teenagers with $1 million each year. Many Boston teens who are not yet eligible to vote work and pay taxes. YLC is one way for them to have a voice in the government that represents them. YLC also helps create informed voters. Each year, the YLC million dollar ballot is printed by the City of Boston’s ballot vendor, giving young people some voting experience on real funding questions before they ever set foot in a ballot box. Lastly, YLC results speak for themselves. Far from being irresponsible or childish, YLC winning projects have historically been focused on addressing perceived disparities, experimenting with innovative new ideas, or boosting funding for popular City infrastructure.

A: YLC funding comes from the City of Boston’s capital budget, as opposed to the City’s operating budget. Capital funds are raised by the sale of municipal bonds, and must be used to make physical improvements to City-owned infrastructure, whereas operating funds are spent on salaries, programs, and other expenditures that require yearly funding. This is why YLC projects are always focused on building something in a public space.

A: No, YLC has been running since 2014 and has allocated over $10 million in City of Boston capital funding to projects imagined and voted for by Boston youth. YLC gives young people the power to spend $1 million annually. Ideas in Action is a new participatory budgeting process administered by the Office of Participatory Budgeting. In their process, a broader age range is eligible to participate. Read more about Ideas in Action here. 

A: Yes, sometimes more funds are available for a project than can be spent in the first round of implementation. For example, the Boston Art Walls project partially funded a huge mural on the Washington Manor apartment building in the South End. This specific mural only required $17,500 of the original $60,000 allocated to Boston Art Walls through YLC, leaving $42,500 left over. In this case, OYEA will continue to try and use the YLC funding according to the project description voted for by Boston youth, until all the funding is used up. Expect more art & murals on Boston Housing Authority Buildings soon!

A: Previous leadership of the Youth Lead the Change Program experimented with running the PB process every other year in order to focus on project implementation during the off years. In 2023, OYEA returned to running PB every year, focusing on building projects concurrently. 

We would love to talk! Please email us at ylc@boston.gov.