Youth Connection Summit: Common Courage

CALLING YOUNG NEBRASKANS – dreamers, doers, innovators, and changemakers! We’re so excited to welcome you to the second annual Youth Connection Summit in Ord, Nebraska. Get ready for an unforgettable overnight experience filled with connection, learning, inspiration, and fun! Together, we’ll explore how young Nebraskans and adults across the state are exercising common courage in their communities to create lasting, positive change.

You are the ones we have been waiting for!

Information Packet

Additional Details

Starts: Thursday, July 23rd at 2:00 PM CST
Ends: Friday, July 24th at 4:00 PM CST
Location: Ord and Kearney, Nebraska

Affiliated Fund Attendees

  • Affiliated Fund volunteers aged 21 and over who agree to accompany and supervise youth from their community
  • High school youth, including 2026 graduates and incoming freshmen

The Youth Connection Summit is an opportunity to funds already doing youth engagement work to sophisticate their practice through immersive experiences rooted in Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). ABCD is an approach to community development that focuses on identifying and leveraging the strengths and assets within a community rather than emphasizing its deficits or needs.

By starting with a focus on assets and strengths, rather than needs and deficiencies, ABCD creates a more sustainable and resilient foundation for community development. ABCD focuses on:

  • Abundance, not scarcity; Assets, not needs
  • Opportunities, not deficiencies
  • Invite people into conversation and co-create
  • Incremental progress creates change that sticks
  • Community-led and community-owned
  • Build relationships before you need them
  • People belong through having their gifts and talents received and appreciated
  • Volunteer associations (i.e. community based affiliated funds) are very powerful and are essential to build community

Registration

Register Here

Registration is open to Community-Based Affiliated Funds who are invited to participate in the Youth Connection Summit. One person must register on behalf of all attendees no later than June 30, 2026.

Background checks and event policy forms must be signed no later than July 15, 2026. This will be emailed to attendees following their registration.

Cost Per Attendee

This event is available to Affiliated Funds at an all-inclusive rate of $100 per high school attendee. This is intended to be paid by the affiliated fund, not by individual attendees. Adult attendees have no cost to attend if there are at least three youth from their community in attendance.

Lodging

NCF will book your lodging at an area hotel after you register for the event online.

Transportation

Affiliated fund volunteers are responsible for transporting youth to and from the event.

Transportation during the event will be provided by NCF, and all attendees must utilize the NCF chartered bus during the summit.

Event policies

  • All attendees who are 18 years old and over will be required to complete a background check, processed through NCF
  • All affiliated funds who attend must bring at least 3 youth to participate to increase the impact of the shared experience
  • Students must be accompanied by adults at a ratio of 1 adult to every five youth
  • Student and adult attendees will be asked to sign and follow a code of conduct for the event. Breaking this code of conduct will result in the fund being dismissed from the summit.
  • Parents/guardians of students will be asked to sign a waiver and to provide basic information about their young person.
  • There will be two to four young people of the same gender in each hotel room.
  • There will be no adults in youth hotel rooms or youth in adult hotel rooms.

Questions?

Chloe Carlson | 402.209.4668  | ccarlson@nebcommfound.org
Becky Boesen | 402.323.7347  | bboesen@nebcommfound.org