As a youngin'-ish on the CCD (Atlanta, GA) board, I am happy to provide my 2 cents to this. I personally joined our board for special reasons not necessarily applicable to this discussion, but I think in normal circumstances, a great way to get younger people onto your board is to convey that this is Leadership Experience. That's an important term to a lot of younger individuals that might want to beef up their resumes or college applications. It's generally somewhat hard to get into leadership positions as a late teen/early 20s individual, and contra organizations are great for this in my opinion.

In my opinion, that's how one should sell it. I don't like the idea of things like "Youth positions" on a board because it could be construed as saying you're valued for your age, as opposed to your ideas/commitment to the community (similarly to if one said your board had "Woman positions", "Hispanic positions", etc.). You want diversity, and younger people want experiences that set them apart in life. It's a good combination by itself I think.

Best,

Jonathan Roveto

Owner/Member

Fair Oaks Holdings, LLC

Cell: (470) 632-2523

PO Box 131

Smyrna, GA 30081

On Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 8:40 AM Emily Addison via Organizers <organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

Another quick question about youth.

Have any of you had success including youth in your boards/committees?
If so, how did you do it?
We've had some success here in Ottawa but I'd love to learn more.

We have two people in their 20s on our Board and one is also on our outreach/publicity team. Plus a teenager on our outreach team. All of those were direct asks to those individuals, inviting them to get involved. We created a 'youth' position on our Board many years ago and that's what got the ball rolling.

I do find that a few of our youth volunteers aren't super reliable on tasks (even well defined ones) but that can happen with older volunteers too and I try to remember what I was like as a teenager. :)

Anyway - would love your thoughts!
Emily

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