Institutional partners
City councils, school boards, nonprofit boards, and advisory committees that formally commit to including SEAT-trained young people in their governance structures.
AN ALIMENTA PROGRAM
SEAT.
The seat was always yours. We just help you pull it out.
SEAT is Alimenta's youth civic leadership program. It trains the next generation to run for office, serve on boards, participate in civic institutions, and occupy the decision-making spaces that have been making decisions about them for generations. SEAT is not about symbolic participation. It is about real authority, real preparation, and real placement into real positions of civic power.
Full nameStudents Earning A Table
ServesHigh school students and young adults ages 16-24
Focus areaRepresentation
Delivered byAlimenta Education Services
Why SEAT exists.
Young people are the subject of almost every major policy debate in America. They are almost never the authors of those policies. School boards make decisions about students without student members. City councils vote on youth programs without young adults in the chamber. Nonprofit boards serve young people without young people at the governance table. This is not an accident. It is a design. SEAT exists to redesign it.
The barriers young people face to civic participation are not primarily motivational. They are structural and skill-based. Young people are not taught how to run for office. They are not taught how a board meeting works, how a budget is approved, how a committee operates, or how to use parliamentary procedure. SEAT teaches all of it.
Every young person who sits on a real board, serves on a real council, or wins a real election because of SEAT is a door that stays open for every young person who comes after them.
What SEAT does.
- Run a structured civic leadership training program for participants ages 16-24.
- Teach the mechanics of how civic institutions actually work - city councils, school boards, nonprofit boards, advisory committees.
- Train participants in public speaking, parliamentary procedure, agenda-setting, and governance.
- Coach participants through running for student government, advisory boards, or local elected office.
- Build relationships with institutions that need youth representation and place SEAT graduates into real civic roles.
- Create a SEAT alumni network of young civic leaders across DFW.
- Advocate at the institutional level for mandatory youth representation requirements.
- Track and celebrate every SEAT graduate who wins a seat, earns a board appointment, or is placed in a civic role.
The SEAT leadership track: eight weeks.
SEAT runs as an eight-week intensive cohort program. Each week focuses on one dimension of civic leadership. The program ends with every participant having a personal civic action plan and at least one specific opportunity to act on it.
- How power works.
How civic institutions are structured. Who holds authority and how they got it. How decisions are actually made - not in theory, but in practice. Participants leave knowing exactly where the levers are.
- Your story is your credential.
Proximity to the issue is the most powerful credential a young person has. Participants learn how to articulate their lived experience as relevant, authoritative, and irreplaceable in a civic context.
- Public speaking & presence.
How to walk into a room and be heard. How to speak at a public meeting. How to make a statement in two minutes that cannot be dismissed. Practical, recorded, critiqued, and repeated until it is right.
- The mechanics of governance.
How a board meeting is run. What parliamentary procedure actually means. How to make a motion, call a vote, and build a coalition. Participants run a mock city council session from start to finish.
- Running for something.
The practical steps of running for student government, an advisory council, or local elected office. Campaign strategy, voter outreach, messaging, and what winning actually requires.
- Building a coalition.
No one wins alone. Participants learn how to build support across communities, identify allies, and create the relationships that make civic leadership sustainable.
- Your civic action plan.
Every participant builds a written, specific, six-month civic action plan. What office or board are you pursuing? What is your timeline? What do you need? Alimenta holds you accountable to it.
- Placement & launch.
Alimenta facilitates direct connections between SEAT graduates and institutions that have agreed to prioritize SEAT-trained young people for open civic roles. This is where the training becomes a real seat.
PARTNERSHIPS
What partners bring.
Program host sites
Schools, community organizations, or institutions that host SEAT cohort sessions - meeting space, eight consecutive weeks, approximately 90 minutes per session.
Youth referrals
Partner organizations help recruit eligible participants ages 16-24 into the SEAT program. Reach across income levels, schools, and communities is critical.
Civic placement commitment
Institutional partners commit to creating at minimum one formal youth seat - voting or advisory - and prioritizing SEAT graduates for that role.
How to get started.
- For young people.
Apply directly by contacting Alimenta, or through a school or community partner. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Cohorts launch quarterly.
- For institutions.
Contact Alimenta to become a SEAT Civic Partner. The conversation starts with a 20-minute call and a simple partnership agreement.
- For schools.
Schools can host a SEAT cohort on campus or refer students to an existing cohort. Alimenta provides all curriculum and facilitation.
- For community organizations.
Refer young people in your community to SEAT and become a program partner. Alimenta does the work. You connect us to the people who need it.
“A seat at the table was never a gift. SEAT teaches young people how to pull it out themselves.”SEAT · Alimenta Education Services
BRING SEAT TO YOUR COMMUNITY
Let’s start
the conversation.
Every Alimenta program starts the same way - a simple conversation with our program team about your school, organization or community.
Contact Alimenta