Over the past few years, something in civil society has shifted. Street protests and online campaigns have mobilised creativity and captured imaginations, made headlines and set the agenda. Movements for climate action, racial justice and gender equity have changed perceptions and viewpoints at incredible speed. Mass mobilisations have challenged and sometimes changed governments.

Many of the movements behind this change have been powered by a new generation of young activists who have reinvigorated older social movements and created their own structures of participation, embracing creative tactics and using new technologies. They are the new face of civil society and they are pushing civil society’s boundaries, challenging assumptions about what civil society is, what it looks like and how it works.

This report summarises the findings of a 10-month participatory research project commissioned by CIVICUS and our Youth Action Team and carried out by an intergenerational team of 14 researchers, 11 of them aged between 18 and 30. It draws from interviews conducted in 12 languages with 103 activists from 55 youth-led groups across 25 countries, and sheds light on the factors influencing young people’s entry into activism, the tactics and tools they are using to generate impact, the challenges they face and the ways in which they tackle those challenges, and the lessons they – and we all – are learning along the way.