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Making Good, released earlier this week, explores how the next generation is "searching for practical ways to succeed financially while also making positive changes in the world." We ask Billy Parish, co-author of Making Good (also authored by Dev Aujla) a few questions about how young changemakers are forging their own paths to success.

Check out more buzz about Making Good!

 

Billy Parish is widely known as an innovative youth organizer, social entrepreneur, and champion of the emerging green economy. He co-founded the Energy Action Coalition, the largest youth advocacy organization in the world working on climate change issues, is co-founder and President of Solar Mosaic, a solar energy marketplace and serves on numerous non-profit and clean-tech boards. Parish lives in Oakland, California with his wife and daughters.

1) The next generation is often recognized as a group that is driven and determined to integrate both purpose and passion into their lives, jobs, families and life goals. Making Good comes at a critical time when many in the younger generation are trying to reconcile their desire to do good, but also to do well. Do you offer any advice or guidance for individuals on how to navigate this intersection?  

Choosing the right people to work with is the single biggest factor that will impact your success. You’re looking for a complementary skill set to your own, but also some core qualities: creativity, integrity, persistence, and passion. Make a list of the 10 people you most want to work with — friends, professors, leaders in a field you are excited about. Cultivate those relationships, vision together and see where opportunities arise.

2) In the synopsis for the book, you make the distinction that this guide for finding opportunities that can effect change and make money are not just for entrepreneurs or Fortune 500 companies. How do you see those who many not identify themselves as entrepreneurial leveraging the “opportunities” that you reference in your book? Do these labels or distinctions matter when it comes to success?

In chapter 8 of the book we look at 3 major pathways for building a career:

• Being an entrepreneur
• Being an intrapreneur (making change from within a company)
• Being a freelancer

It’s possible to be successful and make change in any of those roles, and frankly, entrepreneurship is risky, hard and just not what a lot of people these days want. We’ll need more social change oriented intrapreneurs and freelancers than ever. Existing companies and organizations have tremendous power, and people who can get those institutions to do the right thing can drive serious change. Independent workers already make up 30 percent of the nation’s workforce, and the number is growing every year. This sector includes freelancers, consultants, independent contractors, temps, part-timers, contingent employees, and the self-employed.

3) From the articles I’ve read in various publications that have profiled you, it is clear that you’ve created your own path in life to follow. What is your own personal definition of “success” – whether that be personally, professionally or otherwise?

The most direct way to answer that is to share my mantra: “I am part of the beloved community. Building a more just and sustainable world -- For my family, my community, and all of creation. I am ready to follow.  I am ready to lead. Nothing to it, but to do it.”

1. My definition of real success is recognizing your purpose and passion in life and then following through with the goals you set for yourself. Personally my goals this year are to: Be a great husband, dad and friend;
2. Introduce the first awesome solar investment with Solar Mosaic and make it available to millions; and
3. Release Making Good as a best seller.

4) We’ve seen polls such as Deloitte’s 2011 IMPACT survey show that Millennials care deeply about whether or not a company provides volunteer opportunities for employees. What role do you think skills-based volunteering can play for younger people who may be looking to fulfill this need for making good?  Alternatively, do you think it is important for companies and organizations to provide employees, and in particular younger employees, with the opportunity to volunteer or find pro-bono opportunities?

Yes, I think skills-based volunteering can play a huge role in helping young people find their purpose, and I also think it’s important for companies to offer volunteer and pro-bono opportunities outside of the workplace. Every job involves learning on the go, but as an unpaid intern you are going to have to know what you want to learn and to drive your own education. Interns are often under trained and overlooked so plan for it and leverage the fact that you are working for free to get what you want. If you know that if given access to the company’s internal workings you have the ability to learn everything you need, then working for free could be a great fit with your self-starter impulses. If you prefer to take direction, showing off your abilities through head-down work, you might be better off somewhere with more structure.

It’s also important to ask yourself another question: Will the position give you access to a whole new world of contacts or will you be meeting and spending your days with those you already know? If the job you are taking involves getting out there and meeting lots of people in your field, it could be worth it. You need to take a long term networking view as you never know who you are going to be working with during the next five, 10 or 15 years.
 

5) In addition to the book, you are launching a series of “missions” to help others “meet the right people, build the skills, and find the right opportunities.” The premise is that these missions can ultimately help individuals find the right job.  How do you operate these missions? Can anyone join in and participate?

For the last three years we have been doing the background research, interviews, focus groups and experiments in the process of writing Making Good. We have distilled best practices from the top leadership development programs and job search guides to help people through the barriers they face in seeking meaningful employment. The Making Good Missions is a 12 week program to help people find or create a job that does good. Starting in March, in conjunction with the launch of Making Good, those who sign up will get a weekly email with instructions for their mission. Each mission is designed to help people see the opportunities for employment today, connect with partners and allies, and hone the skills they need in order to make money and do good.
 

6) You have also made a number of investments in ideas that can not only make money, but also have the potential to change the world and you call them “experiments.” How do you select these group/projects and what have you learned from them to date? Can you share with us what your next experiment will be?

We are investing in a series of experiments that enable us to explore new ideas that help people make money and change the world. Currently we are working in partnership with Gameful offering a challenge to 15k game designers that want to do good. The Challenge is to create a game that both uncovers the invisible power structure of an office place, a community or an entire world and then makes it visible for all. We are also working with Net Impact, whose mission is to use their business skills to make positive social change, in order to create a series of missions that help these young graduates meet the right people, build the necessary skills and find the best opportunities to help them get jobs that make money and change the world.   

With more than half of all nonprofit leaders retiring in the next decade -- what does the future leader of the philanthropic sector look like today? What motivates these rising leaders? What drives their vision for the future of the sector? Is it salary – is it satisfaction? Or maybe it’s time we scrap our focus on "the sector" all together and instead look at the blending of sectors and approaches that drive social change.  

As nonprofits prepare for the inevitable leadership transition, a new report by Changing Our World and Future Leaders in Philanthropy provides some compelling perspectives for nonprofits -- from Millennials themselves -- on how to attract and retain future leaders.  It’s not the first time we’ve explored these issues here on Social Citizens, but with the release of the new report, we thought it was worth breaking down these issues a little more.  The report focuses on the following four areas:

•    The disappearance or blending of traditional sectors;
•    A reflection on the importance of salary;
•    Overall job satisfaction; and
•    The Impacts of volunteering.

Let’s take a look first at the disappearance of or blending of traditional sectors.  The study shows that while nonprofits have traditionally “bucketed” their work into the familiar categories of education, health, environment, etc. when Millennials were asked in which “bucket” their work fit into – after “education” the next highest selection was “other” with a wide range of themes coming to light from technology, to social justice, advocacy and human rights to name just a few.  

What’s more, we know that beyond identifying with these issue areas – Millennials aren’t just looking at entering traditional nonprofit institutions to influence social change. They can “do good” by joining businesses with a double or triple bottom line, or by entering a start-up with a pro-social mission.  And until nonprofits are able to attract the entrepreneurial, technologically savvy Millennial – they may  struggle to contend with their pro-social competitors across other sectors.

We tend to think that more than money, prestige, titles or promotions – Millennials have an almost innate desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves.  And the survey further reinforced this notion by exploring why young people choose to do the work they do.  An overwhelming majority cited the “idea of working for a socially mission driven organizations as the primary driver for their choice” – and this answer crossed demographics, young and old, experienced and inexperienced, etc. Of all the reasons to work in the nonprofit sector – salary ranked dead last. 

However, that’s only part of the story. The study showed that “Salary may not be why young professionals enter the sector, but it is a big part of what they think about on the inside, irrespective of gender, length of time in the sector or area of work.”  But perhaps what was most fascinating was that 43% of respondents felt that a nonprofit salary level that is lower than those in the for-profit sector is actually acceptable, compared to 46.4% who felt it was never acceptable. This means that as many people are willing to accept lower salaries in nonprofit work as those who are not, whether because those lower levels reflect “working for a greater cause” or because the nonprofits themselves are “strapped financially for resources.” 

Nonprofits who can’t seem to find ways to be competitive when it comes to salary – are going to have to think again.  According to the study, a much higher percentage of young people consider for-profit/nonprofit salary parity as a motivating factor in choosing nonprofit employment than do older workers.

Whether they want to believe it or not, and whether they’re tired of hearing it or not, today's nonprofit leaders need to recognize that Millennials think about and approach their work differently  just as each generation before them has added their own “flavor” to the workplace. Millennials are mixing things up, and regardless of how driven they are by working for organizations with a social mission - they are just as passionate about being compensated for this work and they expect high performance from the organizations of which they are a part.

For more insights or to download a copy of The Young and the Relentless: An Original Survey of the Next Generation of Nonprofit and Philanthropy Leaders please click here for the whitepaper, or click here to view the webinar.

Welcome to our special guest blog post series - "Millennial Perspectives: Voices of a Giving Generation." We hope you will join us each week until the Millennial Donor Summit on June 22, 2011, as we explore Millennial engagement with a variety of leading experts and practitioners.

This week, we've invited Caroline McAndrews, Director of Leadership & Communications for the Building Movement Project to comment on the evolution of the multigenerational workplace.

There has been growing concern about the breadth and depth of new leadership in the nonprofit sector. Until recently, the alarm was focused on the departure of the Baby Boom generation, but this expectation of a mass exodus has given way to a new reality. The changing economic climate, extended life expectancy, and the desire to be remain active and continue their contributions are leading Boomers to remain in the workforce for a longer period of time. So now, and for the foreseeable future, there will be four generations in the workplace. Organizations that hope to capture the energy and ideas of younger generations – and millennials in particular – will need to figure out how to build vibrant multigenerational workplaces. 

Recently, I’ve been presenting around the country on the findings of a report released by the Building Movement Project last year, What Works: Developing Successful Multigenerational Leadership. The report looks at workplace policies and processes that promote good work and great workplaces ACROSS ALL GENERATIONS working in nonprofits today. Despite overwhelming data that points to practices that work for all generations, I still get a lot of pushback from my audiences regarding Millennials. The overwhelming message is that the millennial generation wants too much, too soon, and with too little respect for the traditional way things are done.

To depict Millennials in this way and to so narrowly define their presence in the workplace can distract us from what Millennials can teach about how to build the best organizations for the future. Hopefully by now, people are aware of some of the key traits of the Millennial generation:

• Millennials are the largest and most diverse generation in the US. The Millennial generation numbers somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million people, 15% of the workforce and growing. Not only are they diverse, but they are the most tolerant generation, accepting of other genders, sexual preferences, race/ethnicities, and backgrounds.
• Millennials are technologically advanced. This reality leads many people to ask a Millennial for help when their computer isn’t working; however, that’s not the best use of Millennial skills. The full implications of modern technology change the way that information is processed, how work gets done, who is involved and from where, and future changes we have yet to anticipate. These changes are second-nature to Millennials.
• Millennials are politically progressive. While many people that I present to attribute this to the fact that everybody is more progressive when they’re young, research indicates that Millennials are more progressive than their counterparts from older generations were at their age. And beyond politics, this generation is much more optimistic about the possibilities of social change in a way we haven’t seen since the ‘60s. 

Keeping these traits in mind, when we look at what Millennials are asking for in the workplace, they are characteristics that respondents in our national survey (from ALL generations) named as important to doing good work and building a positive workplace:

• Clear systems support good workplaces. Clarity about decision making, job requirements, and evaluation are important factors for creating a positive atmosphere in the workplace. This includes transparency and input into decision making, opportunities for management and leadership skills training, and workplace flexibility. In addition, spaces for peer support are important to discuss and apply leadership development skills.
• Explicit paths for career advancement are key. Most people know their job descriptions, but many don’t know whether they’re doing their jobs well. The requests from Millennials in the workplace for clear paths for advancement, knowing what determines success, and how salaries are decided are just a few of the things that older generations are looking for clarity around as well.
• Mission driven organizations are essential. A crucial aspect for Millennials – and all generations – in deciding where they want to work is a strong belief in the mission of the organization and to know how their work contributes to its success. It was no surprise to see that respondents in the Millennial Donor Survey want to see the impact of their contribution. Commitment is to a cause, not necessarily an organization, and Millennials (as well as Generation X) will gravitate towards the organizations and groups that demonstrate a clear ability to create change.

Finally, beyond changing policies and practices, the question I am most often asked by younger generations is whether we can provide them with new models of how to lead organizations that do not concentrate authority and responsibility in one top person. Recent conversations on structures that take into account how younger leaders in the social sector want to lead and how Boomer-age leaders want to adjust their leadership roles push us to look beyond our comfort zone of how organizations have operated to date. Building Movement Project is currently documenting these new models, and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services has released an excellent report Next Generation Organizations: 9 Key Traits.

For more information on generational changes in nonprofit leadership, visit www.buildingmovement.org or read Working Across Generations: Defining the Future of Nonprofit Leadership.