CoGenerate Community of Practice: Strengthening Youth Leadership Through Intergenerational Collaboration | CoGenerate
Quick Project Overview
Title: CoGenerate Community of Practice: Strengthening Youth Leadership Through Intergenerational Collaboration
Status: December 2025 – April 2026
A four-part national learning series supporting organizations that cultivate youth civic engagement and want to explore the power of collaboration across generations. The Community of Practice brings together youth-centered organizations to reimagine civic engagement as cogenerational—where younger and older leaders partner to create solutions and advance civic renewal.
-
While youth civic programs ignite passion and creativity, they often exist apart from older generations who hold experience and institutional knowledge. The CoGenerate Community of Practice was designed to bridge this divide—creating spaces where “youngers” and “olders” collaborate as equals to strengthen intergenerational ecosystems of civic action. Each session explored different facets of cogeneration, from frameworks and field stories to the practice of allyship and age-diverse governance.
-
CoGenerate — Lead convener and host organization
Conscious Futures LLC — Research, evaluation, and design partner
Participating youth-centered organizations and community leaders across the U.S.
-
As Research and Facilitation Partner (via Conscious Futures), I co-designed the learning architecture and evaluation framework for the Community of Practice. My contributions included:
Co-developing facilitation materials and post-session synthesis tools
Designing metrics of success and evaluation tools aligned with session objectives
Conducting landscape research on intergenerational civic collaboration
-
Co-designed four interactive sessions (plus one bonus session) exploring intergenerational frameworks, allyship practices, and governance models
Released the youth-centered report What Teens Want—and Don’t Want—from Older Allies as a framing resource
Facilitated dialogue and reflection across youth-led and multigenerational organizations to translate theory into practice
-
Evaluation plan and insights memos summarizing learnings across sessions
Landscape scan of participating organizations and intergenerational practices
Framework synthesis connecting civic engagement to intergenerational systems change
Facilitation notes, feedback forms, and session documentation
-
Human-centered and participatory design methods
Reflective evaluation frameworks and impact metrics
Collaborative tools (Zoom, Miro, Google Suite) for remote facilitation and synthesis
Impact & Learnings
Strengthened understanding of cogeneration as a practice of civic allyship, not just collaboration
Identified promising practices for integrating age diversity into leadership, governance, and community engagement
Informed CoGenerate’s continued development of age-diverse ecosystems supporting youth-led civic innovation
