Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) is helping to unleash the brilliance of Australia’s next generation of social entrepreneurs, innovators and change makers through the Young Social Pioneers (YSP) program.

The program supports Australia’s best and brightest emerging social entrepreneurs and innovators, aged 18-29. The program amplifies their social change purpose, builds networks of support and develops their business skills and capabilities to drive successful purpose-driven ventures.

The YSP initiative is a yearlong program that helps emerging young changemakers develop the skills and networks they need for their ventures to succeed. FYA supports young entrepreneurs because successful ventures create social change. Young entrepreneurs are also demonstrating new pathways for young people to achieve in life through philanthropy and social enterprise. The YSP alumni are a critical mass of practitioners creating interest, building practice examples, and providing leadership in this area.

YSP utilises a structured and sustained learning program designed to help Pioneers develop in three key areas that are critical to running a successful venture:

Having a clear social venture vision and purpose
Establishing networks that provide resources and support
Developing enterprise and leadership skills to improve operational sustainability.

Throughout the YSP learning journey Pioneers attend three intensive in-person experiences that include peer-to-peer learning, capacity building experiences and mentoring/coaching opportunities.

YSP is part of the FYA’s Unlimited Potential commitment to young Australians to support them as:

Future focused learners with the skills to navigate the world of work and learning, and to follow career pathways,
Confident contributors with the ability to connect and get involved locally and globally, especially in the Asia and Pacific regions, and
Enterprising changemakers with the ideas, confidence and capabilities to create change in their communities and beyond (FYA 2013).

YSP is also part of the International Youth Foundation’s global initiative YouthActionNet, which has to date supported 890 young social entrepreneurs from countries as diverse as Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Spain and Turkey.

Young Social Pioneers website