How YES Works
We built the system we wish had existed.
People ask what Youth Experience Sponsorship actually does. The answer is simple: a kid wants to do something specific, and the cost is standing in the way. We cover it.
YES isn’t another youth program. We’re the chassis underneath dozens of great programs, connecting motivated kids, generous donors, and outstanding organizations.
Marin is already full of incredible programs: sports teams, tutors, camps, music schools, dance studios, arts programs, and educational instructors who know how to help kids grow.
The programs already exist. The motivated kids already exist. The donors who want to help already exist. What was missing was the infrastructure connecting all of them. That’s what YES built.
That’s the whole idea behind YES. We don’t decide what a kid should want. We follow what a kid already loves, or feels inspired to try.
Three Moves
01 · A kid chooses
A kid names something they already want to do: the specific thing they’re reaching for. Basketball. Dance. Music lessons. Tutoring. Robotics. Cooking. Sailing. Summer camp.
02 · YES clears the cost
The kid applies. If they’re accepted, we pay the partner program directly: the coach, the camp, the tutor, the studio.
The partner runs the experience, and the kid does the thing they chose. It doesn’t end when the experience does. Once a YES kid, always. Kids can return, build on what they started, or choose something entirely new.
Why this works so well
The reason this works so well is the parents are helping their kids, the kids are challenging themselves, and the partners are doing what they do best. We pay the program directly and quickly, so the kid can participate.
Our awards committee weighs motivation, so the experience on the table is always the one the kid reached for.
Every dollar is checked twice. We vet the partner before we hand anything over, send it to them directly, and attendance is verified after.
The programs are already here and good at what they do. The kids are already motivated. YES connects the two by clearing the cost.
A kid’s life doesn’t wait
Here’s the part that won’t leave us alone. A kid is only nine once. Only twelve once. Think about the thing that shaped you at that age: a team, a teacher, a summer that changed how you saw yourself. That window doesn’t stay open, and it doesn’t wait for anyone’s budget. A donor named Boris put it better than we can: kids today are not going to be kids tomorrow. You can’t rewind time.
We didn’t build YES around a funding calendar. A motivated kid who’s ready now can’t wait until next year, because there may not be a next year for the thing they’re reaching for.
Whatever a kid is passionate about
Kids are passionate about all kinds of things: a sport, an instrument, a summer camp, a subject they want to get better at. Whatever a kid is genuinely motivated to try, YES looks for a way to say yes.
A kid might want to make a team, build confidence, catch up in math, express themselves, find belonging, or discover what they’re capable of.
Lean on purpose
We keep the operation lean. A small team, purpose-built tools, and a tight process let us back more kids.
“The parents are doing the work. The kids are doing the work. The organizations are doing the work. I’m just finding a way to get the money to them, as fast as possible, as efficiently, transparent, cost-effectively, with the fiduciary standard, so that they can decide what works for them real time and give their kids access to opportunities.”
Who decides
The YES Awards Committee looks first at the kid’s own motivation. Not every kid is funded right away. But a no is never the end of it: any kid can reapply. The committee always includes a seat for a coach or mentor who understands the power of a motivated kid firsthand. View Governance & Awards
What we’re honest about
Here’s our secret. We don’t know which experiences will change which kid. Nobody does. What we know is how to take the cost out of the way, and let the kids follow their motivation.
Annalee sent her son Chicho to eleven days of camp in the high Sierras. She is still finding out what it did:
“Some months later I hear more about what he really went through and what growth he experienced from it. And then even many more months later different things would come out.”
— Annalee, Chicho’s mother
That is the honest shape of it. The experience finishes long before the effect does, which is why we fund the chance rather than predict the outcome.
Life-changing experiences are only possible if someone says “yes.”
Every program operates differently. A baseball club doesn’t work like a music school. A tutor doesn’t invoice like a summer camp. Every family, experience, payment, schedule and participation requirement is different. It sounds simple. It isn’t. That’s what makes this complex, not hard, but complex. YES built and keeps improving one adaptable process that handles all of it, without asking families, donors or program leaders to figure it out themselves.
Where the money comes from, and where it stays
YES sits in the middle of something that already exists. The programs are already here and they are already good. The money is already in the community. What was missing was the thing that connects them, quickly, for a kid who is ready now.
Community dollars
The money that clears a kid’s cost comes from people and businesses in the same community that kid lives in. Neighbors funding neighbors, in plain terms.
Money that stays local
YES pays the partner organization directly. The dollar goes to a program down the road, where it pays coaches, teachers and instructors who live here too.
Community input
The awards committee holds a seat for the community. The decision about which kids are backed is made with people from here, not only by the organization.
YES runs no programs of its own
That is deliberate. Running programs would put YES in competition with the organizations it exists to fill. Staying out of that is what lets any of them be an option for a kid.