Casey Given is the Executive Director of Young Voices, a nonprofit that cultivates the next generation of pro-liberty leaders in policy, journalism, and academia, and a Students For Liberty alumnus. Since 2009, when he first started a libertarian club at the University of California, Berkeley, and then a year later joined SFL as a Local Coordinator, Casey has always been a proactive leader of liberty.
Casey joined Young Voices as an Editor just a year after several SFL staffers had started the media project in 2013. High demand from young professionals spurred on a big expansion. In 2016, SFL asked Casey to spin the project off into an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Thanks to Casey’s hard work, Young Voices has seen more than 300 young writers go through its writing and professional development program. The organization has tremendously affected many people’s professional careers, setting them on the path to becoming rising journalists, policy analysts, and podcast hosts.
In 2022, Young Voices collected 80 million estimated views and had 576 article publications and 946 broadcast interviews, with a 97% article placement success rate. Launched in 2019 Young Voices Accelerator Program for current and aspiring podcast hosts to take the message of liberty to new media has helped many participants start their projects from scratch and break thousands of listeners/viewers.
To defeat the growing positive attitude toward socialism in younger generations, Young Voices has recently launched the Dissident Project, which is a speakers bureau that aims to bring high school and college audiences first-hand testimonials from young people who escaped authoritarianism. Casey sees enormous potential in teaching the importance of freedom to curious audiences across the United States.
Casey Given attributes much of his success to Students For Liberty. “I think just being exposed to leadership roles at a young age is a unique opportunity that a lot of people straight out of college don’t really get,” he said, “I am eternally indebted to Students For Liberty for giving me the skills, experience, and confidence to be an Executive Director at the ripe age of 26,” Casey concluded.
Written by Anastasiia Rusanova
