NeXtGen Digest

What a meeting! Major thanks to Katey Wilks, executive Director of the Fort Wayne Children’s Choir for hosting and providing elaborate resources on generational diversity in the nonprofit workplace.  We loved the chance to see the FWCC’s new home in IPFW’s Rhinehart Music Center, but what truly set this meeting apart was its multi-generational diversity. We intentionally sent a call out to Boomer nonprofit professionals and the dialogue showed how effective having more than one age group in the room can be!

We discussed specific challenges with the trust of confidentiality that all of our meetings have. With the perspective of folks who have been in the trenches for a few years we learned quite a bit about sustainable change and how for the good of organizational mission, it is necessary to effectively pass the torch. We talked at length about the challenges inherent in this torch passing and among other things, agreed that our work will take open hearts, courage and respect.

Our November meeting will be hosted by Rachael Caslow, Volunteer Development and her co-worker, Leslie Augustyniak with the Girls Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana. The date is pending, but a large portion of the agenda is set.

That is to say, we will have a much more structured agenda than we have in the past. Look for updates here and in your inbox, prompting your feedback. We are expecting this to be an administrative meeting to work out any kinks and prepare an action plan for the spring. If you have something to say, we need you to be there.

Independent Sector | 2008 Annual Conference

Coming up November 9-11 in Philadelphia. This amazing conference by Independent Sector would be phenomenal of its own accord- but the relevance to NeXtGeners is even greater.

Look into the NGen track, particularly note these special NGen speakers:

• Tamara Draut, director of the economic opportunity program, Demos, and author of Strapped: Why America’s Twenty-and Thirty-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead;
• Brian Gallagher, president and CEO, United Way of America; and
• Benjamin Jealous, president and CEO NAACP.

Why should you be there and what more can you learn? Check this out ~