YL Wisconsin Forward

A Strategic Plan for the Wisconsin Region

About Our Mission

Moving Young Life Forward in Wisconsin Doubling our Reach and Impact For 75 years Young Life has been connecting Kids and Christ. The world of kids today is a little crazy and need for Young Life has never been greater. It is with this confidence that the Wisconsin Region is boldly pursuing a plan to add staff, grow our existing ministries, launch new ministries, dramatically increase our impact, and provide the funding to fuel and sustain this for the next generation and beyond. This fundraising initiative – called YL Wisconsin Forward – is the Wisconsin Region’s expression of Young Life’s FORWARD campaign.

About the Campaign

Our goal is to more than double our reach and impact across the state over the next 5 years. To do this, we are aiming to raise $2.6M in funds – for $263,000/year to fuel support and leverage growth initiatives and staffing around the state.

The YL Wisconsin Forward campaign is in the “quiet phase”, a time of extensive planning and early engagement of key donors. This phase began 18 months ago and will continue through most of 2020 before we announce anything publicly. Still, we’ve already received pledges from individual donors totaling more than $1.5M in legacy funding.

We’ve placed a high priority on further developing the one-on-one relationships established by our staff and leadership team. Our early efforts have included a feasibility study and we have invited donors into the planning of the campaign. Their feedback has been excellent and many have agreed to join the Executive Campaign Committee. We will continue to engage key stakeholders in small group settings and will keep them collectively informed through a monthly newsletter, which now has a circulation of more than 150.

The first YL Wisconsin Forward initiatives already under way include the launch of Young Life College in Madison and a ministry collaboration with Rawhide Youth Services in New London.

Executive Campaign Committee

We are building our Executive Campaign Committee (ECC) and campaign planning is a work-in-process.

Leadership

  • Rebekah Bender, Regional Director, Wisconsin Region

  • Mike Miller, Midwest Division Campaign Director

YL Wisconsin Forward Core Values

Teamwork WIsconsin YL already has an amazing team that is hard at work to reach the unreached youth in our region. Success stories will be added to this site to showcase the great work that we plan to expand upon.

Diversity is a key goal of this campaign. We want our YL team to reflect the blessing of diversity that has been given to us in this state.

Forward speaks to the current YL global mission as well as our state motto. It is the emblem of hope to raise up the team and the funds to eventually reach every kid in Wisconsin.

Forward is the battle cry our staff and leaders. It is the daily fight throughout the region as they try to reach every kid. When we continue to advance in this way, we are gaining ground against the enemy in the most important battle we face.