generations

Howe and Strauss, authors of Millennials Rising, predict that based on generational trends, the Millennial generation’s “complete breakout” will be around 2010. We should be hitting our peak right now, really coming into our own, and attracting a lot of attention for it. And I think, in many cases, we are. Many of the conferences and affinity groups in our sector are starting to provide significant roles and development opportunities for the “next generation,” our generation’s role in the 2008 election is still being analyzed by experts, and let’s not forget the hubbub created around the Morgan Stanley superintern’s report about How Teenagers Consume Media.

Next, however, will come the ebbing of public interest, when people are tired of hearing about who we are as a generation, what we care about and how we are different from those who have gone before. Based on the cycles of previous generations, Howe and Strauss say this should happen in the oh-teens, although it’s possible that social media will speed up that timeline a bit. Then what will we do with ourselves??

This reminds me of a post I read last year by Len Kendall about why he stopped writing about being a Millennial and why he advises others to do so as well. Len practically begs Millennials to distinguish themselves as something great, regardless of age and to resist the urge to use the gimmick of being young, while we can. Yes, there is another generation behind us. Yes, they’ll start getting more attention than us in a few years. They will be the new twenty-somethings with great ideas and new ways of doing things, and we may, for a moment, feel like the forgotten middle child.

Rather than exploring how I am personally distinguishing myself beyond my youth or how this blog is going to stay relevant when the next generation is the hot topic, I’m concerned with how our generation is going to continue to be relevant, influential and impactful. Our true relevance isn't based on youth. As we’ve discussed before, social citizens can be any age, but the Millennial generation has defined the social citizen. Millennials’ relevance is now, and will continue to be, based on our unique way of looking at problems and shaping our society. And rather than lamenting our generation's inevitable fade from the list of hot topics, I’m frankly looking forward to being a person with a unique way of meeting a challenge and not a YOUNG person with a unique way of meeting a challenge. We don’t need youth as a novelty to gain a seat at the table.

Just as Boomers continue to be relevant, we will stay relevant as we come of age. We will always be Millennials. As the buzz around our generation is dying, we will also begin taking the reins in business, politics, government, media and nonprofit work. I get all tingly dreaming about some of the ways the characteristics that make us Millennials will continue to impact all aspects of our society.

We prefer partnership to hierarchy. Will we improve the way that our organizations, and even governing bodies, work by releasing more control, collaborating more than we are competing and eliminating careful bureaucracy? How will we treat the generation entering the workplace behind us, and how will that spur innovation?

We blend the sectors and structures. As is already being demonstrated with our affinity for social enterprise and cross-sector partnerships, we connect our values and causes to our jobs and our shopping habits, and we reject the belief that doing good is the responsibility of just one sector. As our buying power increases, will we force business, more broadly, to make more environmentally and socially responsible decisions? Will we demand that nonprofits function more like businesses? Will models like TOMS Shoes replace business models that are purely profit-driven? What will the new standards be for Corporate Social Responsibility?

We value transparency. With online personas created by all of our blogging, facebooking, and tweeting, it’s nearly impossible for individuals to set a hard line between professional and personal and for organizations to limit the information circulating about them to what comes out of their communications shop. Will our standards be compromised as we knock down the walls between our personal and professional lives? Or will we set new standards for transparency and openness?

We are globally aware, globally connected and globally concerned. The effects of globalization and technology have helped us to realize that it IS a small world after all. Will our increased concern, connection, and sense of responsibility regarding our neighbors in other countries and cultures make a significant impact on their lives? Will our institutions be more active and quick in preventing genocide, oppression, and other injustice around the world? Will we be more peaceful?

We are idealistic and optimistic. Having rejected the cynicism of the generation before us, we are convinced that change is possible and that we can make a difference. Will this lead us to try outrageous things that others haven’t? Will it increase our willingness to put trust in each other and institutions to do the right thing?

Our environmental resources are diminishing, our economy is crumbling, and according to a Washington Post Breaking News Alert that came in as I was writing this, “more Americans are going hungry” (49 million to be precise). Even as our problems seemingly become more and more complex, we are also being asked to take the reins, to look to the future and to predict what’s next for the nonprofit sector. We know that business as usual (if ever there was such a thing) is no longer going to cut it and it seems we’ll never go back to our pre-crisis standing. So, how do we take hold of this moment in time, and what role will the rising generation of Millennials have in helping lead the change?

Earlier this month, the James Irvine Foundation released a new study, Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector.  In it, LaPiana Consulting outlines five ways the nonprofit sector will be redefining its role, noting that, “The nonprofit sector is at an inflection point that will fundamentally reshape it long after the recession, when surviving nonprofits find themselves in a new reality — not just economically, but demographically, technologically and socially.” The five trends focus on the following areas:

• Demographic shifts that redefine participation
• Abundant technological advances
• Networks that enable work to be organized in new ways
• Rising interest in civic engagement and volunteerism
• Blurring sectoral boundaries

While reading the report, I couldn’t help but reflect back almost two years ago, to the beginning of Social Citizens. As I worked with Allison Fine to develop the key themes of the report, you’ll find some commonalities.  Remember, our goal was to see how the future of the nonprofit sector was being reimagined through the lens of the Millennial Generation. We defined a social citizen as someone who is, “energetic and passionate about social causes; brimming with new approaches and ideas for problem solving; disposed toward sharing the responsibilities and rewards of affecting change in the world; and using digital tools and people power (on and offline social networks) to make it happen.”

We found some distinguishing characteristics of “social citizens” – let’s take them point for point in comparison to the above study.

• Demographic shifts: Millennials are the most ethnically diverse generation in our history
• Technological advances: Millennials are net natives, growing up with cell phones in tow
• Organized Networks: Millennials go against hierarchical structures and have adopted a new collaborative style of leadership
• Civic engagement/volunteering: Millennials are volunteering at the highest rates of any generation
• Sector Boundaries: Millennials are merging lines between for profit and nonprofit structures and concepts. Social activism has become a new marketplace where goods and services are exchanged not just for money and profit, but good social outcomes.

I applaud the Convergence report for pointing out what’s changing and what it will take to survive amid these changes, and I hope that as a sector we’ll begin to break down some of the generational boundaries that still abound.  Call me naïve or an idealistic Millennial, but there has perhaps never been a better time to experiment, to let go of the status quo, and to embrace new opportunities for change.  We need to look at the world through a new lens.

The rising generation has a lot of ideas, and we’re being invited to more tables as evidenced by the record number of NextGener’s who participated at the Independent Sector Conference earlier this month.  Since Millennials seem to be inclined toward the types of behaviors that will shape the future of the sector, don’t you think greater cross generational collaboration could help ensure a smoother transition? How can we continue to bridge these generational gaps and recognize we're all in this together? 

There is a bit of tension in the nonprofit sector. Boomers are concerned about what they see as a crisis of leadership - they've invested years in their causes, and are not entirely comfortable stepping out of the way and leaving a void too large for the next generation to fill. At the same time, I spent some time this week talking to a group of Millennials at Council on Foundations and Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy's preconference session, and a recurring theme was the need for mentoring and lack of opportunities to engage with seasoned leaders in our sector and receive help charting our own careers in the business of changing the world.

At the risk of sounding like a young and entitled Millennial, I would say that many of us are eager to lead, and while we do lack many of the experiences of our predecessors, we also have valuable technology and social media skills, a different leadership style, which can be more inclusive and draw a new group of people who have been feeling jaded or disengaged, and an insistence on a double-bottom line – all of which are beginning to change the ways we support the causes we care about.

I wonder if there isn't a solution to these issues in creating intergenerational skilled volunteering programs. Especially with the economic crisis, nonprofits will need to rely more on pro bono work - not just for legal services, but for fundraising, marketing, HR programs, websites and more. In this, let's face it, slightly depressing job market Millennials like myself are eager to gain valuable experiences to beef up our resumes and find opportunities to establish ourselves as leaders. And most Boomers will admit that while they have mastered many things, understanding why someone might poke them on facebook, isn't one of them.

You might be thinking this is obvious, and I know I’m not the only person to ever suggest intergenerational learning – but my peers and I are still having trouble finding access to these opportunities. I attended a panel on corporate volunteering at COF, I didn’t hear any examples of programs which intentionally brought Millennials and Boomers together where they could give back and learn from each other. A few people mentioned the added benefit of being able to connect with senior leadership or potential mentors that they would otherwise not have a chance to interact with, but it seemed largely anecdotal and left to chance. While they might take increased coordination at first, I would love to see Millennials and Boomers learning from each other - while helping a cause they're passionate about. Are there good models that I’m missing? Why don’t we see more of this?

This time last year we were reading drafts of the Social Citizens paper and wondering whether it was sea worthy, meaning would the findings and assumptions hold up over the course of a few stormy tosses and turns. And now we know the answer: mostly yes. Of course, we missed one big thing coming on the horizon, more than a storm, an economic tsunami really, but, then again, so did everone else! 

In preparation for the WeMedia conference taking place this week in Miami, I wrote a short reflection piece on the Social Citizens paper a year later.  Here is a quick summary of that paper.

Certainly the intensity of interest in social causes, and the rapdity of growth of individual causes and cause events, has continued and perhaps even quickened because of social media. Twitter, the fastest growing social networking site, has spawned events like Tweetsgiving and Twestival, raising thousands of dollars to build schools in Africa and buy drinking wells and filters for clean water worldwide.

But the construct of Social Citizens has also changed throughout the year. One issue in particular that we wrestled with throughout the year was whether Social Citizens are by definition Millennials (ages 15-29). And I think that the answer is, naturally, more complicated at second glance than at first. Not all Millennials are Social Citizens, and not all Social Citizens are Millennials.  But there is more movement on the later idea than the former, particularly when you see the data that the Pew Foundation recently released showing that older people are coming online faster than any other segment of the population.  And old in this instance isn't me (regardless of what my kids say) it means over 75!  Your grandparents are on email, your parents are on Facebook, and you're on Twitter, and we're all pinging and poking and tweeting about causes. Increasingly, we're all social citizens.

That's the good news. Unfortunately the bad news is really bad, the fast sinking economy is the first economic crisis young people have ever faced. Sagging beneath a pile of credit card and student loan debt, unable to find jobs, unwilling to live at home, the patina of effortessness that had clung to Millennials all their lives is beginning to wear off. How this will affect causes is uncertain at this point, but it's difficult to imagine that the cup of coffee grown on an organize farm by an entrepreneurial native family will do as well today as it would have last year against the less expensive one.

One very interesting issue to watch moving forward this year is the growth of the public sector as the stimulus money begins to move through the system. Certainly the early signals are that Millennials who were very involved in the presidential campaign are not as drawn to the messy reality of governing. However, if the only growth area for jobs in the next year or two is the public sector, that may change the wariness and distance that young people have had from the public sector as a whole.

We'll continue to watch from our perch here on the blog and on Facebook and Twitter and whatever the new Twitter is and continue to learn how people engage with one another for causes and how those causes affect our relationships and our communities.

I just finished the new book, Working Across Generations, from the Movement Building Project folks, Frances Kunreuther, Helen Kim and Robby Rodriguez. It's a really terrific read and roadmap of the difficulties of this moment of leadership transition from Boomers to the rest of us.

Last week’s Barron’s weekly magazine featured a story on the New Faces of Philanthropy. As traditional charitable donors cut back their giving in this economic climate, new givers are moving in. Barron's profiles these Gen-X givers who want to make their charitable mark now, not when they're 50 or 60 years old.

Generations are most often and aptly shaped by the events, the leaders, and even the trends of their time – but what’s in a name?  According to a recent study by Harris Interactive, 4,000 Americans aged 21 to 83 were asked what they thought of different generations.

It’s kind of interesting that Gen Y (or Millennials), Gen X, and even the Silent Generation had something to say – they all are yearning for a new brand that better represents them. In fact, Baby Boomers are the only generation that overwhelmingly agree with the label they’ve been given.

In true Beth Kanter style, she has gone above and beyond to provide us with a terrifically robust roundup of the “who’s who” of Gen Y and twenty-something bloggers. I’m excited to say we’ve featured many of these great voices here on Social Citizens, but some are brand new to me — and have quickly made their way as new additions to my RSS feed.

We appreciate the nod to Social Citizens and are glad to be recognized as one among the growing voice of Millennial bloggers. As we see more and more people talking about and writing about Gen Y (admittedly sometimes ad nauseam), this list renews my hope and confidence in our generation to share their own thoughts and ideas about how we’re changing the social change sector.

Here are a few blogs that have recently found themselves in my rotation … what’s in yours?

Gen Y Give: As a millennial, Miriam Kagan believes in the power of young people to “give” and talks about the motivations and trends related to her generation and philanthropy.

Mobilizing Youth: Ben Rigby of MobileVoter incidentally also wrote the book Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Technology to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth, a book with lots of answers for those of you who are just looking to break into this.

The Brazen Careerist: This site based on Penelope Trunk’s blog always seems to have some timely and relevant blogs, probably because of its self-proclaimed network of “vibrant, curious and ambitious career-minded bloggers.”

Amy Sample Ward: She provides some enlightening thoughts on the intersection between the social change sector and technology.

You heard it here first — the Philanthropy 2.0 party at the Council on Foundations will be the talk of the town come May 6! Kari, Eric, myself, and the rest of the Case gang are helping to host the first-ever “Philanthropy 2.0 and Next Generation Leaders Party” from the Summit. So far, it’s a smash — great food, great drinks, great music — and even better, terrific discussion about Web 2.0 technology’s role in philanthropy today.