Young Professionals: the Future of Community Development

Never too young to lead

The young people in your company are ready to lead. Here's how to prepare them for the responsibility.

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10 reasons your top talent will leave you

Failing to spark employees' passion, creativity and intellect, and ignoring their contributions, will lead them to walk out the door, Mike Myatt writes. "If leaders spent less time trying to retain people, and more time trying to understand them, care for them, invest in them, and lead them well, the retention thing would take care of itself," Myatt writes.

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Dunkin' looks for the sweet spot in retaining talent

Dunkin' Brands' HR chief, Ginger Gregory, says a successful talent-retention initiative during her tenure has been the implementation of a "stay interview process," where executives are asked blunt questions about whether anything would cause them to leave the company. The company had relied solely on exit interviews to learn about its talent, which was ineffective because information about top executives was coming too late to help with retention, Gregory says.

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Must-Have Job Skills in 2013

Even as employers remain cautious next year about every dollar spent on employees, they'll also want workers to show greater skills and results.

For employees who want to get ahead, basic competency won't be enough.

To win a promotion or land a job next year, experts say there are four must-have job skills.

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Mindfulness at Work - 3 ways to get started

Being aware of what is happening to you in the present moment without judgment or immediate reaction. It sounds so simple. The noticing and awareness part is one thing—but without judgment or immediate reaction? This requires practice: To notice when someone is pushing your button and take it in as information, but to not get caught up in the emotion of it. To be an observer of yourself in the world and not judge if what you observe is good or bad.

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Giving Thanks for Good Career Advice

Don’t surprise your boss.

Focus on the win.

Write thank-you notes.

Those are among the pieces of advice that nonprofit workers got early in their careers and that they still appreciate.

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Working Across Generations: Defining the Future of Nonprofit Leadership

Working Across Generations offers a comprehensive look at the leadership and generational shifts in the nonprofit sector.It presents ideas and gives practical advice on how to approach generational changes in leadership so that the contributions of long-time leaders are valued, new and younger leaders’ talent is recognized, and groups are better prepared to work across generational divides.

This book examines the meaning of leadership transfer for individuals, their organizations, and the field; reports on how older and younger social change leaders are preparing (or not preparing) for these changes; and recommends how these transitions can take place in ways that move social sector work forward.

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How Young People Learn about Nonprofits Online

To reach people in their 20s and early 30s, the most important thing nonprofits can do is to make sure their Web sites are easy to read on a mobile device and not overly cluttered.

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Make the Most of Your Workforce: Six strategies to optimize the generational melting pot

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Decoding Generational Differences: Fact, fiction ... or should we just get back to work?

Want to liven up a leadership meeting? Just introduce the topic of how to deal with the newest generation in the work-force, the millennials.

Some people think that the differences in attitude between this group and more experienced workers are so profound that business, as it is currently conducted, will never be the same again. Others believe that the debate is pointless since the distinctions being made don’t constitute real differences. A third group doesn’t care if the differences are real or not. They suggest that we all “just get back to work.”

So whose view, if any, is closest to reality? Why is this topic even worth discussing? Because millennials are fast becoming an influential factor in the workplace …
and an increasingly important part of its future.

There are plenty of opinions on the topic, but not a lot of understanding. Discussions of generational differences in the workplace too often produce more heat than light. It is as if
we all talk past each other in some kind of code that gets in the way of us really communicating. To promote true communication, we need to decipher that code. Then we’ll have a better understanding of what’s going on, so we can success-fully move ahead.

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Good in Theory, Problems in Practice - Young professionals' views on popular leadership development stragegies

Young Nonprofit Professionals Network recently surveyed over 1,100 emerging nonprofit leaders across the country. This report lifts up the voices of those that want to continue building mission-driven careers that deliver meaningful results. Good in Theory, Problems in Practice strengthens and complements the ideas being generated in the field of talent and leadership development by testing them on the ground with YNPN members and other young professionals to help stakeholders develop a better understanding of what’s working, what’s not working, and what else we must do to develop and retain high-performing, diverse talent.

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Fledgling Nonprofit Workers Love Their Jobs but Bear Financial Burdens

The newest generation of nonprofit employees strongly wants to remain in jobs that do good—even as many of the workers struggle to get by on low entry-level salaries and pay back their student loans, according to a new survey by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Eight out of 10 new workers want to continue working at a nonprofit, even though 40 percent say they are dissatisfied with their pay. And about 65 percent said they have college-loan debt.

The survey, which tracked more than 900 people who have worked at nonprofits for less than five years, was conducted with help from the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance and the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network.

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