Description: Anti-capitalist money-funnel for radical youth indoctrination groups founded in Oakland, California in 2000, by foundation-guided merger of four existing youth organizing groups and based on the Tides Center fiscal-sponsorship model with a half million dollars of foundation money. YEC is fiscal sponsor of the four founding groups:

• C-Beyond (a Tides Center project - radical organizers)
• Youth Force Coalition (anti-prison group)
• SOUL - School of Unity and Liberation (racial / economic justice group)
• Underground Railroad (art and culture for revolution)

and subsequent groups:

• Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations (STARC) (activist group)
• Resources for Youth Students and Trainers (RESYST) (Gill Foundation donation for queer youth training and education workshops)

Adam Gold, YEC executive director and treasurer
Salary approx. $40,000 from C-Beyond, secret because it is an unreported project of Tides Center
January 2000, co-founded Youth Empowerment Center
July 2000, taught Ruckus Society workshop on revolution
1999, panelist at ultra-leftist Center for Political Education, panel on white activists against racism
January 1997, co-founder and executive director C-Beyond, a Tides Center project organizing radical youth in Concord, CA

Profiles of other YEC directors

• Harmony Goldberg, President. 1999-2001: executive director, SOUL (School of Unity and Liberation), Oakland, CA; August, 2002: as member of Jews for a Free Palestine visited Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Gaza. July 2001: jailed for unlawful assembly after disrupting Alameda County (CA) Board of Supervisors meeting; 1998, Critical Resistance conference: panelist on "Developing Revolutionary Strategies"; May 1997: graduated, University of California at Berkeley; organizer, "Californians for Justice" and Students Against Proposition 209; 1995, leader of UC-Berkeley's Diversity in Action coalition; 1976, born in Buffalo, New York.

• Anthony "Van" Jones, Secretary. Founder and executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC) in San Francisco (anti-prison group). Born 1968, rural west Tennessee. 1990 graduate, University of Tennessee at Martin. 1993 graduate, Yale Law School. Numerous honors.

• Lateefah Simon, executive director of The Center for Young Women’s Development, which advertises itself as "a peer-directed recreational program for queer young women in San Francisco, specifically young Lesbians of color, who are on their own or are homeless."

• Cindy Weisner, Director. Organizer, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), San Francisco.

Grants to Youth Empowerment Center:

Foundation Name: The Zellerbach Family Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Concord , CA
Abstract: For C-Beyond Project to increase civic participation activities in Bay Point by engaging youth in leadership training and community action campaigns
Amount: $25,000             Year Authorized: 2000  

Foundation Name: Levi Strauss Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Concord , CA
Abstract: For start-up costs for umbrella organization fostering youth empowerment through community organizing for social change
Amount: $30,000             Year Authorized: 2000
Type of Support: Seed money 

Foundation Name: The San Francisco Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Oakland , CA
Abstract: For Youth Force Coalition
Amount: $10,000             Year Authorized: 2001

Foundation Name: The San Francisco Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Oakland , CA
Abstract: To develop management capacity at start of capital campaign that will allow agency to remain in Oakland
Amount: $15,000             Year Authorized: 2001
Type of Support: Management development

Foundation Name: The James Irvine Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Oakland , CA
Abstract: To expand and strengthen youth organizing field in San Francisco Bay Area and California through organizer training, networking, collaboration and capacity-building
Amount: $50,000             Year Authorized: 2001
Duration: 2-year grant
Type of Support: Program development

Foundation Name: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Oakland , CA
Abstract: Toward support to continue C-Beyond Mount Diablo School Reform Project which seeks to improve quality of secondary education for low-income youth in San Francisco Bay Area's Mount Diablo school district
Amount: $200,000             Year Authorized: 2001
Type of Support: Continuing support; Program development

Foundation Name: Surdna Foundation, Inc.
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Oakland , CA
Abstract: To train organizers and build strong youth-led organizations prepared to tackle important policy concerns in the Bay Area
Amount: $75,000             Year Authorized: 2001
Type of Support: Program development

Foundation Name: Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Oakland , CA
Abstract: To launch Youth Empowerment Center to promote youth activism and leadership
Amount: $25,000             Year Authorized: 2000
Type of Support: Program development

Foundation Name: The San Francisco Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center / Youth Force Coalition , Oakland, CA
Abstract: For youth-run advocacy campaign to decrease public spending on prisons and to increase support for education and resources needed for community health and well being
Amount: $20,000             Year Authorized: 2000
Type of Support: Program development

Foundation Name: The San Francisco Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center . School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL) , Oakland , CA
Abstract: For summer programs
Amount: $25,000             Year Authorized: 2000
Type of Support: Continuing support; Program development

Foundation Name: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Recipient: Youth Empowerment Center , Concord , CA
Abstract: Toward launching C-Beyond-Mount Diablo School Reform Project which seeks to improve quality of secondary education for low-income youth in California's Mount Diablo school district
Amount: $100,000             Year Authorized: 2000
Type of Support: Program development

Total: $575,000

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