Thanks and I hope to see you over at my new site soon!

My new site!

I’m super excited about this aggregated location for all of us to share and post from our blogs and about our joint Twitter feed @npmillennials.

Please check the website and let us know what you think about our blogs, the nonprofit sector and millennial issues all around.

P.S. As a reminder, the Alliance members include:

• Colleen Dilenschneider; @cdilly
• James Elbaor; @jameselbaor
• Kevin Gilnack; @kgilnack
• Trina Isakson; @telleni
• Allison Jones; @ajlovesya
• Ben Sheldon; @bensheldon
• Rosetta Thurman; @rosettathurman
• Tracy Webb; @blkgivesback
• Tera Wozniak Qualls; @terawozqualls
• Myself.

Courtesy of Flickr User Profound Whatever

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m working with a friend to build a new website and move my blog and associated content over there. That is taking up some time, but I am trying to continue to keep an eye on the 31 Days to Building a Brand New Blog challenge.

Day 24′s challenge is to write a link post. Since I follow all kinds of amazing bloggers and find cool posts everyday through my glorious Twitterati friends, it was easy to find some to share. Check out the links below and enjoy!

• “A healthier life? Try public transportation – Transit Score helps get you there” – Full disclosure: Smart Growth America is my full-time job and this is their blog (which I do not write). BUT: that doesn’t mean that this post isn’t great. It shares some extremely interesting information on a study recently completed connecting access to public transportation with longer, healthier lives for Americans. It makes sense right? If you walk a bit each day to get to that bus stop or train station, you get more exercise than the average person that walks three steps to her or her car. And in a country experiencing an obesity epidemic the way we are, exploring every option for mitigating it makes sense.
• “Navigation Lessons from the Next Generation” – This short, excellent post from Linda Crompton, the President and CEO of Boardsource, couldn’t be more on the money in regards to younger leaders serving on boards of directors. Just one excerpt: “The next generation of leaders can make the crucial difference in how effectively your board navigates a path forward while the ground continually shifts beneath it, because this generation has never known any other way to go.” Hell yes!
• “Setting the Record Straight about Nonprofit-Focused Graduate Degrees” – If you’ve been working in the nonprofit sector for five minutes and you don’t already have a Master’s degree, you’ve no doubt thought about it. (Whether I like it or not, Master’s are starting to become ubiquitous in nonprofits.) Who better to break it all down than my good friend Heather Carpenter who is studying these Master’s programs for her dissertation. This excellent post explains the types of Master’s degrees you can get and then goes on to provide a table of 50+ of the top programs from around the world. Awesome!

But now I’m rectifying that by sharing a couple of announcements with you.

1) A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about applying to the Leadership Council of YNPNdc. After an interview process that involved over 70 people (out of 100 or so who applied apparently), I was offered a spot on the Leadership Council! As you can probably imagine, I was pretty damn excited . I was assigned to work with the Communications Team which will help YNPNdc increase it’s presence in social and traditional media channels, maintain and improve our website and continue to provide growth, learning and development opportunities for young nonprofit professionals in the DC area. I’m really looking forward to not only continuing to hone and develop my own leadership skills, but helping others to hone theirs as well. Have questions or want to get involved? Email me at my new YNPNdc address.

2) Each new job I get brings a new set of information, interest and resulting passion about a new issue. At my current job, that issue happens to be transportation, with an emphasis on public transportation (or transit). Combine that with living in Arlington, VA – one of the best places in the country IMHO and a place with a very robust citizen engagement process through advisory councils and commissions. Put these things together and voila: I was appointed to the Arlington County Transportation Commission. My three-year term has already started and my first commission meeting is in September. In this role I’ll be able to have input into the execution and future development of Arlington’s transportation master plan (which is a document of over 150 – I need to start reading it ASAP if I’m going to get through it by September .

For a bit more info on both of these positions, please do visit my VisualCV and/or LinkedIn.

And keep your eyes peeled: within the next several weeks, I’m planning to move my blog over to a self-hosted format with a new look and all the fun plug-ins I want and need.

I actually started in reverse order and did the Day 3 challenge of updating your blog’s About page first. Check out my updated (and hopefully improved) About page and let me know what you think.

Tonight, I moved onto the Day 2 challenge: writing a purpose statement for my blog. I started with Rosetta’s proposed list of questions below, answered them and attempted to craft the answers into a purpose statement. Please let me know what you think so that I can continue to critique and improve it! Once it’s done, it will get added to my About page as well.

1. Why do you blog?
   • I blog because I love to write, but writing is actually hard for me to do. I blog because I think too much and have opinions about almost everything and I want to share them.
2. What do you blog about? (be as specific as you can here, especially if you have a niche)
   • I blog about nonprofit leadership issues, intergenerational conflict (and conflict resolution), career issues and nonprofit management with a little love, food and travel throw in along the way.
3. What do you want to become known for through your blog (what kind of reputation are you seeking to create for yourself)?
   • I want to be known as a nonprofit thought leader with ideas and practical solutions to the management and leadership problems that nonprofits face everyday. I want to build up a consulting practice based on that expertise.

So here’s my purpose statement:

“Onward and Upward is a blog about nonprofit leadership, management, intergenerational issues and about my climb up the experience/knowledge/employment ladder. I hope that by reading it, others will gain insight and ideas into how to advance their own careers and make the nonprofit sector even better. And I hope to make some friends and meet new colleagues along the way. Welcome!”

Again, let me know what you think and keep an eye on the hashtag #31bnb and Rosetta’s blog for further updates and posts.

My Gramma and Grandpa years ago.

I’m taking a break from my regular blogging topics to spend a few minutes paying tribute to my Gramma. She passed away last week, a day short of her 77th birthday. I miss her already.

My Gramma wasn’t a cookie-baking gramma. She was a tougher, take-no-crap kind of gramma. Of course, she took care of all of us but she certainly took no crap while she was doing it.

After raising my mom and three siblings, she went to work in the Post Office. My grandpa worked there too; he delivered the mail, she sorted it and worked with customers. After years of service, they retired to Arizona.

I visited them once after I graduated from high school. We took walks early in the morning, drove around touring central AZ, and hung out. She told me about growing up in upstate New York, the trouble she got in and the boyfriends she had. She said that most of them would do whatever she told them to, but that she didn’t want that kind of man; she wanted a guy like my grandfather who would stand up to her. Guess we’re alike in that.

There is so much more about her that I don’t know or can’t remember. Suffice it to say that she was a wonderful, fun-loving, tough old lady. I hope I can be more like her someday.

I love you Gramma and I miss you.

I’ve been looking for a way to gain some more leadership skills and get more involved in my community and YNPNdc presents the perfect opportunity. As a fantastic organization that offers valuable service to the community, it provides an excellent vantage point to both exercise the skills I have and gain more in the company of other dedicated young professionals.

Plus, I can’t believe what a warm, friendly environment I’ve encountered just in the past couple of weeks from other members of YNPNdc! Members of the board spoke to me at the reception following the conference and encouraged me to consider applying. Malcolm sent me a personal email inviting me to a leadership mixer the group had last night for those interested in applying (sorry I couldn’t make it!). Everyone I’ve spoken to that has been involved in the organization sings its praises. I couldn’t possibly ask for more encouragement or higher recommendations.

So, I’m putting in an application to join the YNPNdc Leadership Council. I’m not sure if I’ll get ‘the job’, but no matter what happens I will certainly continue my involvement with this organization.

Are you involved in YNPNdc? Let me know what you think! Not involved yet? What are you waiting for?! This organization is the place to be for up and coming nonprofit professionals in the DC metro area – you should get involved and apply for a leadership position TODAY!

Flickr photo from edkrauser

The second session I attended at the YNPN DC 2010 conference was titled “From Vision to Reality: Personal Effectiveness in Professional Life” featuring personal coach Atieno Bird. She was great and the session was probably the most helpful for me in terms of honing in on some short-term goals.

The objectives of the session (from Atieno’s presentation) included:

• empowering yourself through identifying your strengths
• articulating a clear vision of where you are headed
• leaving with a simple doable action plan you can start on immediately
• practicing communicating your professional mission statement and brand

The first thing we did was introduce ourselves to someone else from the perspective of our biggest fan. The exercise was supposed to help us to focus on our strengths, not our weaknesses. My dear friend Candice and I actually attended this session together and we paired up for this exercise. We adopted the persona’s of our mothers and introduced ourselves to each other.

The exercise turned out to be harder than I thought. Giving up those weaknesses and insecurities when introducing oneself (even if you have a big ego and a big mouth like me) is difficult.

The next exercise was to write a ‘magic-wand’ paragraph looking into the future 10 and then 30 years. We had to talk about where we would be, what we’d be doing, how we’d be feeling and in what way we’d be making the world better for people. The idea was to write quickly, without thinking about it too much in order to hopefully get to the heart of what we really want. In the spirit of transparency and openness, here are my paragraphs:

10 years – I wake up in my beautiful town house looking forward to another day running the organizing and advocacy work at my nonprofit job. I have breakfast with Dan and head out the door to my office downtown ready for meetings, planning and executing my campaign. I’m advancing women’s rights through my current campaign. I feel driven, productive and focused because I’m fulfilling my purpose, which is to make the world better for women everywhere.

30 years – I wake up in the morning looking forward to another sunny, beautiful day in the Caribbean. I get ready with Dan and head into our restaurant/bar to get ready for a day of entertaining tourists and ex-pats. I begin cleaning up, prepping food and making sure everything is comfortable. I am feeling happy and relaxed because I am fulfilling my purpose, which is to make other people relaxed and happy, one at a time.

My conclusion after this exercise: Retirement is looking good!

My retirement (Courtesy of Flickr user dLux.hu)

Another exercise that was helpful for me was to create an “imperfect” mission statement – again, quickly and without thinking about it too much. This mission statement was supposed to look about 5 years into the future and focus strongly on activities and strengths.

Here’s mine: Within the next 5 years, I would like to get American citizens more engaged in their democracy by leading the organizing and advocacy department of a major national nonprofit organization, using my abilities to strategically plan, identify innovative advocacy techniques and building partnerships across different organizations.

Both the mission statement and the magic wand statements helped confirmed that where I’m headed is where I actually want to be. I was reassured by that, because I’ve been questioning it for the past few months.

I tend to go in phases in my own professional development: I get really into it and attend events, sign up for classes and work on networking and making connections. And then, once I feel comfortable at a job or I get tired or overwhelmed, I stop actively pursuing it until something sparks me. At that point I repeat the cycle all over again.

My next steps from this session include continuing my own development by working on my mission statement, asking for help from others (which was one of Atieno’s biggest tips) and looking for opportunities to make my mission statement become reality.

I’d love to see YOUR ‘magic wand’ paragraph and mission statement. Care to share them in the comments?

The kick off session was an intergenerational dialogue breakfast facilitated by Rosetta Thurman and Alan Abramson. Below are some of my notes from the session.

Brad Sciber from National Geographic, who was a founding board member of YNPN DC, introduced the session and talked about how he had to teach his parents about nonprofits when he decided to join the sector. He explained that academia wasn’t a fit, business for business sake didn’t move him and he didn’t want to be a government worker; he wanted to do something that mattered and make the world a better place.

Brad now has a young son who has the option to do something that matters throughout his life; but how is Brad supposed to explain that to him? Here’s how he going to do it: by sharing the story “Stone Soup.” The synopsis: Some strangers come to town but no one in town wants to share the food with the strangers. So, the strangers decide to start a pot of soup boiling in the middle of town with 3 stones and they talk up how good it will be. They note that the soup would be better with an onion, but that even without it the soup will still be good. After hearing that, someone contributes an onion to the soup – after all, an onion isn’t a big deal. The strangers then say that the soup would be so much better with a carrot, so someone contributes a carrot. This continues on until eventually they have a delicious soup that everyone in the town has contributed to and can share. This is a great metaphor for the nonprofit sector: we all put in our little bit to make the ‘soup’ wonderful; and if we didn’t have that gathering pot of soup we’d all just be a bunch of people with random veggies.

This is how YNPN DC has grown in the past 6 years: more and more people have contributed and now there are many more events, more opportunities for professional development, far more members, and a stronger voice.

Rosetta kicked off the session by sharing some statistics and loose definitions of the various generations represented in the workplace, including the silent generation (born 1925-1945), baby boomers (1946-1964), Gen X (65 – 79), Gen Y (80-2000). (For more on the stats and reports that detail a generational shift in nonprofits, check out Ready to Lead: Next Generation Leaders Speak Out and YNPN’s report on leadership development and career progression in the nonprofit sector, Stepping Up or Stepping Out [PDF].)

She then asked some questions of the group that we responded to at our individual tables.

• What do you wish people knew about your generation?

• From baby boomers – we have a sense that government can be a positive force and it has shaped our lives; the power of popular movements and public service to do good is hugely important; a lot of us had a sense of working hard, paying dues, and working your way up in the workplace that we were taught from an early age; some key cultural touchstones: men born after 1954 knew (and still know) their draft numbers by heart and in the workplace most people smoked all day everyday – those are thing that young people have never experienced.
• From Gen X – AIDS was a huge economic and health impact on our lives; we feel like Gen Y doesn’t recognize the need to pay their dues; we as Gen X-ers are more willing to pay our dues and we empathize with the baby boomers in that respect
• From Gen Y – even though the media wants to label the newest crop of college graduates the ‘lost’ generation due to a poor economy and a lack of jobs that keep us living at home, Gen Y-ers are actually very entrepreneurial, we are starting our own businesses and making things happen; we are more willing to take risks, but in a way that can allow great change to happen and new social norms to be created

• How do we move the ‘next’ generation of leaders into the ‘now’ generation of leaders? What can we do on the individual, organization and regional (DC metro) level?

• Individually
  • Start with trust in one another instead of waiting to earn that trust
  • Especially for Gen Y-ers: let your boss know that you will stay at an organization if you are cultivated and appreciated
  • Gen X can seek out and help develop younger leaders
  • Go to your supervisor and ask them what they know; this credits them for their knowledge and you also get professionally development
• Organizationally
  • Be more transparent on salaries, benefits, etc. so that we understand where each other are coming from re: money and that pressure
  • Organizations should keep a list of professional development opportunities or maintain connections with other organizations that do have that information
  • Organizations should start and maintain a policy of supporting professional development in all employees
  • Sessions conducted by employees for other employees on different knowledge areas
• Regionally
  • External mentoring with other organizations
  • Strengthen the nonprofit community in DC by participating in groups like YNPN

The session was a great chance for each of us to learn from other generations and start (or continue) a dialog that needs to happen in our workplaces, schools and homes. The workplace is ever changing and if we’re going to be successful within it, we need to be flexible and work together whether we’re moving up or moving out.

Flickr phot0 from edkrauser

I’ve been a member of YNPN DC for a couple of years now. I admit that my involvement hasn’t always been at a high level; I’ve attended a couple of happy hours, I’ve gone to a couple of networking events and that’s about it. But this year, when I saw that registration had opened for “Serve Today, Shape Tomorrow: A New Direction for Young Leaders” I knew I had to go.

Here are just a few reasons why:

• An excellent agenda – There are interesting sessions covering examples of excellence in the nonprofit sector, letting go of your fear of fundraising (I will most definitely attend that one), managing volunteers, using personal effectiveness in professional life and more. I’m excited to learn so much from one dynamic event!
• Exciting speakers – The agenda features several nonprofit stars in the DC metro area, including my good friend Rosetta Thurman who will facilitate an intergenerational conversation during breakfast. Beatriz “BB” Otero from CentroNia will deliver the keynote address. She’s definitely a role model of mine as a strong, intelligent and effective female leader in the sector. And if those two weren’t enough, the fabulous Robert Egger will offer the closing plenary. Nice!
• Networking opportunities galore – From the opening networking breakfast to the networking lunch to the post-conference networking reception, I will be able to meet, talk and connect with hundreds of other young nonprofit professionals in DC. This is like packing 3 months of networking into one day! As an extrovert I really thrive on being able to talk to tons of people and to hear and learn from them as well.

I think registration is still open so if you haven’t signed up yet, do it now! And if you can’t come to the main event, at least come to the reception at the end of day or follow the live tweeting with the hashtag #YNPNdc10. I’ll look forward to seeing you there!