Youth Rising: Fellows & Future Architects of Equity (Vol. 2, No. 2)

By Dr. Shane Nelson

The Shift | Vol. 2, No. 2 — Transforming Black Futures Together: Driving Change from Within

Flourishing on Your Terms: Ensuring Young Adults Co-Design at Every Step

The ways of working are constantly shifting. AI agents turn notes into polished documents. Meeting formats change from week to week. Tools multiply faster than anyone can master them. Amid all this acceleration, one question keeps us grounded: are young adults at the center of the work we produce?

There is no need for another platform to adopt or a workflow to automate if the data shows that young adults are being overlooked for real opportunities. We addressed that question head-on and identified three core components that underpin everything we do: agitation, education, and organization.

You Can Be Mad, Make It Work for You

Our fellows bear the full weight of where our systems are falling short. Affordability. Access. Attention. These were the themes that surfaced when we last sat with Equity Unleashed Fellows for a pulse check on what today actually feels like.

Not being able to use your current pay for future joy will agitate you. Having the drive and being blocked from matching that motivation with training will agitate you. Raising concerns and watching them go unaddressed because no one is focused on your needs will agitate you.

When we work with young adults, we do not run from that agitation. We work through it to discover what can be built. We treat the annoyances and obstacles of a broken system as design challenges we can collectively heal, channeling every emotion and every action toward meaningful change.

Now That We’re Feeling, Apply Yourself

Education is one of the world’s most important technologies. At a time when the entire internet fits in a dataset that lives in your pocket, knowledge is not the bottleneck — knowing how to use it is.

We structure all of our programming around curriculum that blends peer-reviewed research, national association best practices, and insights we collect across our projects. Rather than overloading sessions with information, we ground every gathering in an emotional awareness check-in and a quick assessment of how we are feeling. We weave in music, film, and other media to keep examples relevant and engaging.

All of our educational approaches stem from a pedagogy rooted in three pillars:

Love	Radical Imagination	Inclusive Pragmatism
We want every young adult to know that our work together grows from genuine care for their development and their peers — a care we expect them to carry forward.	We show young adults that demanding better from our economy is not delusional. Their efforts will help build a future where we all flourish.	We account for multiple learning styles and keep tools and exercises practical for immediate application in daily life.

Feeling, Knowing, and Collaborating

At the organization stage, we celebrate how much we have learned and identify where we adapted. Because of the internal work and the external learning, we can address problems at scale. This preparation connects us to the Transformation Office at LeadersUp, where project management frameworks provide a clear roadmap for achieving results together.

Organizing together also demands that we stay accountable and change course when young adults tell us to. One of our strongest examples came from the Evolve Fellows, who shared honest feedback about how they wanted to experience community. That feedback prompted our combined project team to launch design sessions that centered their needs and data to improve our programming.

Try It for Yourself

You can practice these same elements of agitation, education, and organization within your own team. Here is an approach from our office:

Start with clarity. Draft a brief for your team that connects to your broader strategy, outlines key milestones, and names who owns each piece. A clear brief prevents the agitation that ambiguity creates.

Invest in shared learning. Educate yourselves as a team around what each person needs from the others. Build a broader “impact plan” that turns individual understanding into collective direction.

Document the journey. With the briefs written and the plans laid, move through the work and take careful notes on what changes. This documentation feeds your team’s education and helps redefine best practices in real time.

The beautiful thing about applying agitation and education is that you are already applying them as an existing organization. Watch how both techniques transform your team for the future of work.

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Dr. Shane Nelson is the Director of Youth Engagement and Economic Empowerment at LeadersUp, merging critical research with practical actions for our portfolio of young adult programming.