The student experience is local, but it does not happen alone. YTC supplies the nonprofit home, program design, technology, relationships and continuity that allow the ETHS club to grow. Right now, supporting the club also means helping keep YTC strong enough to support it.
What a gift does here is concrete: a refurbished laptop into an Evanston home; a robotics kit on the bench a freshman learns on; a student-teacher's weekly session with a classroom in Nigeria or Namibia; the sponsor, insurance and coordination that let a student-run club keep running for a seventeenth year.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE WORK
Our major expansion in Africa was funded by elbow grease, sacrifice and students' energy. This is an idea worth spreading, worth keeping alive, worth supporting.
That is the whole team behind a program that reaches Evanston and partners across two continents — held up by the volunteers around it.
Running this lean is a point of pride — almost every dollar reaches students, not overhead. But it is fragile: one overextended person is the line between a program that grows and one that quietly stalls.
Your gift buys the hours our CEO needs to build the partnerships that fund everything else, keeps a bookkeeper making us transparent and audit-ready, and puts mentors in the room often enough to meet every student who walks in.
See the ways to give →With a team this small, volunteers are not extra help — they are how the work gets done. A few hours of a real skill goes straight to students instead of onto an overstretched desk.
Grants, storytelling, design, technology, logistics, equipment, mentoring: bring one defined strength, carry one defined need. That is the whole ask.
Join the Community Team →Until major donors and larger grants can carry YTC’s shared infrastructure, our working goal is to use unrestricted support raised here close to evenly: approximately half for the ETHS student experience and half for the YTC backbone that sustains it. This is a bridge strategy—not the permanent model.
THE FUNDING BRIDGE
YTC has always intended each club to become locally self-sufficient, while major donors and larger grants support the shared organization. With only two main clubs operating in the United States, that larger funding base has not yet arrived at the scale the work requires.
Build the student-facing program Evanston can increasingly sustain through local donors, families, businesses, foundations and community partners.
Support the lean infrastructure that holds the model together and makes the ETHS flagship more than an isolated after-school club.
FIVE WAYS TO HELP
Some support reaches students immediately. Some strengthens the systems, people and relationships behind them. The ETHS flagship needs both.
Support instruction, supplies, local programs, student teaching and experiences that move an ETHS student from learner to teacher to leader.
Support the shared campaign →Laptops, computers, robotics equipment, tools and other technology become things students can learn on, repair, teach with and place back into the community.
Offer equipment →The student work depends on an organization capable of coordinating programs, maintaining technology, managing partnerships, documenting results, stewarding donors and building the next opportunity.
Discuss infrastructure support →This is the capacity larger grants and major donors are ultimately meant to fund:
Until that funding base is established, the local and shared systems have to be built together.
Defined help with grants, storytelling, design, communications, technology, logistics or equipment can strengthen the chapter without creating another layer for students to manage.
Explore the Community Team →A school, university, company, foundation, nonprofit or local business can place expertise, equipment, funding or a meaningful experience in front of an ETHS student.
Start a partnership conversation →THE YTC@ETHS COMMUNITY TEAM
YTC@ETHS is student-led, but students should not have to carry every adult responsibility around the program. With a paid team this lean — a part-time CEO, a part-time bookkeeper, and mentors stretched thin — volunteers are not extra help; they are how the work actually gets done. We are building a small community advisory team of parents, alumni and Evanston professionals who can take ownership of a defined need and help the club grow.
Help turn real student work into clear stories, photographs, video, news and community awareness.
Help improve the website, visual materials, presentations and the tools students and supporters use.
Help identify opportunities, prepare proposals, build donor relationships and strengthen local support.
Connect ETHS students with universities, companies, nonprofits, speakers, mentors and meaningful experiences.
Help source, organize and move useful technology, supplies and the practical resources that keep projects working.
Share a skill, career path, idea or experience that can widen what an ETHS student imagines doing next.
This is an advisory working team, not a second governing board and not an open-ended volunteer commitment. The invitation is simple: bring a useful skill, choose a defined need and help carry it.
BUILD THE MODEL WITH STUDENTS
YTC IMPACT stands for Initiative, Mastery, Problem-solving, Agency, Contribution and Teaching. In the planned ETHS pilot, each student’s IMPACT Account will record growth and contribution. IMPACT Credits will be awarded for completed portal tasks, learning, teaching, mentoring, service and leadership. Students will help shape the rules before the model is offered to future YTC clubs.
WHERE THIS COMES FROM
The Global Learning Alliance — YTC’s learner-to-teacher model, carried across borders — grew from founder David Finkel’s long-held vision, catalyzed by Prosper Tornyi’s work in Africa and made real by Eslien Tsuses’ first partnership in Namibia. ETHS made the Chicago side institutional by investing in its students as international teachers. Today YTC@ETHS is being developed as YTC’s first Flagship Global Learning Center — the working model future clubs can learn from and adapt. It remains the local ETHS chapter, not a national headquarters.
BUILD THE FLAGSHIP · SUSTAIN THE SYSTEM
Your support helps ETHS students learn, teach and lead now while giving YTC the capacity to turn this local success into a durable model. The long-term goal is self-sufficient local clubs supported by a nationally funded YTC backbone. This campaign is the bridge that gets us there.
NONPROFIT + TRANSPARENCY
YTC@ETHS is a program of Youth Technology Corps NFP, Inc. It is not a separate charitable organization. Gifts support the work through YTC’s federal tax-exempt nonprofit structure.
Candid Gold Seal of Transparency
YTC has shared substantive organizational, leadership and financial information through Candid. The seal demonstrates transparency; it is not an endorsement or a charity rating.
Donors seeking to restrict a contribution to a specific purpose should contact YTC before giving so the intended use can be confirmed in writing. Please consult your tax adviser regarding individual deductibility.