At Brown Issues, we meet you people exactly where they are—at school, on social media, and within community spaces—turning each into a hub for cultural pride and mentorship. Our signature program is our after-school Brown Issues Chapters. Today, we host over 20 Chapters that serve as sanctuaries for our young people. Here, we provide social and emotional support, male role models, offering a counter narrative to the confrontational messages often received by our young people.

These spaces have been co-developed with youth participants and are led by a team of dedicated volunteer mentors who bring rich lived experiences and a passion for coaching Brown youth. When young people join Brown Issues, they discover they are not alone. We bring together youth from very diverse backgrounds — from students on probation to 1.0 GPA students at continuation schools to 4.0 GPA students — and engage them in our community events and our Policy Bootcamps. Our loving peer-to-peer strategy is a force!

From college visits to healing retreats, we set high expectations and support our young people through very complex challenges, helping them graduate, own their stories, and inspire others. Through our athletics program, youth art show: reimagine justice, and field trips we deepen bonds with our youth and a sense of community. 

Our involvement in schools often starts in moments of crisis—either responding to violence or through invitations from teachers or principals who are eager to bring rich cultural insights to their schools. We seize these moments as opportunities to ignite change within the educational system. Most of our mentors in the Brown Issues Chapters are volunteers, passionately returning to their communities to provide the cultural and emotional support they themselves once missed. Some of our mentors have decided to pursue careers in education–that’s a pipeline grounded in love.

At Brown Issues, we recognize that education is not just about what happens inside the classroom. It’s about nurturing the inner world of our youth and the influences that shape them. Many young people spend a significant amount of time on social media, similar to the previous generation that watched TV. That’s why we’ve created a powerful social media platform to ensure that Brown youth see themselves as the heroes of their own stories. We intentionally use these platforms to inform, inspire and to mobilize our young people to take meaningful action.

Our impact is felt all across the State and nation. Young people see themselves on our platforms, are inspired by our poetry slams and campaigns. At Luther Burbank High School in South Sacramento, our after-school Brown Issues Chapter has transformed into a class taught during the school day by Miguel Campus, who mentors young men and inspired the “South Sac Give Back” community event led by youth.