Exploring Life & Business with Augustus Holm of Youth Philanthropy Council

Today we’d like to introduce you to Augustus Holm

Hi Augustus, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Our official journey began in 2018 when we first worked with San Ysidro Health in middle school. Our 6th-grade class raised funds to help build a new exam room at San Ysidro Health’s Maternal & Child Health Center. Here’s where my peers and I learned that we could make a difference no matter how old we are. This realization filled our hearts with passion and inspired us to take action. The following year, I had the opportunity to help raise awareness about the San Ysidro Health 50th Anniversary Fiesta Gala. I asked what I should do besides raise awareness, and they said to try to raise any funds I could. So I gathered a few of my friends, and over the course of 8 months and hundreds of calls later, we were able to raise $100,000 for San Ysidro Health and another $130,000 on stage at the gala. We happily worked evenings and weekends and were ecstatic to learn we raised $230,000 in cash donations, table sales, and auction donations. From that moment, we decided to pursue the mission of empowering youth and helping to break the poverty cycle. Since 2019, we’ve raised 3 million dollars in donation revenue through various passion projects. As we’ve grown up, our organization has grown alongside us, with 2024 shaping up to be our biggest year yet for service.

And to answer the question of how we got to where we are, it boils down to having the right team where everyone has put their wholehearted devotion to influencing circumstances as much as possible.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
All things considered, it has been a relatively smooth road. I say this because although we are children, we don’t have the same extensive networks as adults, and despite many of our members’ schedules rarely coinciding due to classes and commitments, we still managed to make massive changes in our community. Our projects are never not enjoyable, our team member’s dedication is palpable and infectious, and our results have always been beyond satisfactory. Has it been an easy road? No, but it has been smooth in the sense that our team’s efforts and overall output have made the whole process deeply fulfilling. Every setback, every late night, every obstacle has been well worth it, not only for us but for our community as well.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Youth Philanthropy Council?
The Youth Philanthropy Council is California’s largest kid-run nonprofit. By having teenagers run logistics, lead teams, and manage donor outreach, we encapsulate our goal of kids helping kids. In the long term, YPC aims to help break the poverty cycle by improving affordable access to basic necessities such as healthcare and education. YPC specializes in inspiring youth to do the impossible and pursue adult-level responsibilities in the organization. The lack of experience was initially fostered by a group of dedicated advisors and mentors who helped guide us on how to raise funds, pitch, and give back effectively. Now, the same kids who were the mentees have become the mentors for the new generation. The YPC brand is rooted in innovative youth being unapologetically ambitious and delivering on those ambitions. YPC constantly seeks new supporters, members, chapter leaders, and mentors who want to help us grow.

As the chairman of YPC, my work primarily revolves around strategizing the expansion of YPC and advising on the development of YPC initiatives. Our new Co-Presidents take a much more hands-on approach, planning all the logistics and executing many of our latest projects. My specialties are in finance, operations, and technology. One of the things I am most proud of is inspiring a new generation of YPC leaders to take on the mantle. Our leadership team is twice the size of when I started back in 2019, but it will be 10x what we were able to accomplish back then. This year, we will break the world record for the most amount of shoes donated in a 24-hour period by distributing 20,000 pairs of brand-new shoes in a single day. What sets us apart from others is our youth. Too many people view inexperience as a liability when, in reality, it’s an asset.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
A close friend of mine and the Co-Founder of YPC, Emilio Perez, described risk and faith as being “inextricably linked.” He said, “Faith in oneself, faith in one’s team, faith in circumstances. Faith is having confidence in something and believing in it, and risk is the natural expression of that belief. I think risk is taking steps in the dark and trusting that something will be there. The more faith you have in something, the more risk you’ll be willing to take. Luckily for us, we’ve had faith in ourselves and our circumstances enough to take many risks throughout our philanthropic journey.”

Our organization was born on faith and risk. San Ysidro Health took a risk in having YPC, a group of middle schoolers at the time, co-chair their 50th-anniversary gala for our first event ever, having no real philanthropic experience. YPC took a risk in building a school on a continent across the ocean, placing our money and trust in people who we’d never even met. We also took a risk in asking for more shoes than we knew what to do with and then giving them all away in a day. These risks, which luckily paid off, were based on the faith placed in us by others and the faith we placed in ourselves. As this faith continues to grow, so will our level of risk, especially as we launch branches in New York, LA, Massachusetts, and Mexico. The risk I am most excited about though is our new entrepreneurship competition: YPC Labs. This is a competition by the youth, for the youth with 50,000 in total prize money. High schoolers nationwide can enter their ideas for a chance to win funding. We are paying it forward and placing our faith in the minds of tomorrow as so many have done for us along our journey

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ypc.care/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ypc.care/
• Twitter: https://x.com/ypc_care
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@YouthPhilanthropyCouncil