Philip Morris USA’s support for positive youth development focuses on organizations and programs that emphasize kids’ strengths, promote positive behaviors, connect youth with caring adults, and enhance community-based resources for kids.
These programs are designed to help kids develop the confidence and skills they need to avoid risky behaviors, such as tobacco use. PM USA also supports adolescent tobacco cessation programs.
Between 1999 and 2009, PM USA provided grants in excess of $240 million to support school and community-based PYD programs, making the company one of the leading funders of PYD in the United States. PM USA’s PYD funding supports organizations that:
- provide evidence-based programs for kids like mentoring, life skills education and substance abuse prevention curricula;
- help national youth-serving organizations reach more kids, improve program quality, and better measure their impact;
- help community leaders align youth programs and policies; and
- conduct research on effective PYD programs.
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Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the
National 4-H Council will deliver tobacco and other risky behavior prevention programming to over 665,000 middle school students and 48,000 adults who work with them in the Southeastern U.S. in 2010.
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Big Brothers Big Sisters of America will provide high quality mentoring to over 42,000 Southeastern youth.
- Through PM USA's 2009 grant to the University of Colorado at Boulder, over 100,000 middle school youth are projected to receive
LifeSkills® Training, a school-based substance abuse and risky behavior prevention program proven to reduce underage smoking by up to 87 percent.
- The Ready by 21 Partnership will work with community leaders in the southeastern U.S. to help prepare kids for college, work and life. This effort is a collaboration between national organizations including the
Forum for Youth Investment,
United Way of America, the
American Association of School Administrators and the
America’s Promise Alliance.
