Shift Press is a youth media organization that provides journalism training and news that encourage Houston youth civic engagement. Through our educational programs, youth share stories on local power and folks of all ages learn how to use media to their benefit.

Donors and members believe that young people deserve to be seen and heard. They play no role in guiding the journalism produced by Shift Press or the planning and execution of events.

More about Shift Press:

Shift Press was created by the Institute of Engagement, a collective that helps young people take responsible ownership of their Houston. With funding from the Simmons Foundation , the collective launched its Civic Fellowship in 2018, where a cohort of 13 students from across the Greater Houston area gained civic skills and knowledge and then applied them to a topic of their choice. (Topics included restorative justice, gentrification, and AAPI civic engagement, among others.) 

By the end of that year-long program, it was clear that the fellows and their peers lacked autonomous spaces to share and amplify their work. Local legacy media organizations were and still are structurally apathetic and antagonistic to Houston’s young people.

As a result, the collective launched Shift Press July of 2020 with support from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars . Since then, the collective has engaged thousands of Houston young people and their stories through direct pitches and past organization activities:

• intensive journalism fellowship
• live-streamed, youth-led community conversations
• neighborhood writing series collaborations
• media trainings for local youth-concerned organizations