To Quote :: A 2-for-1

I attended the final event in local speaker series earlier this week featuring the string trio Time for Three. The three members are all about 30 years old, classically trained musicians who have been friends for 10+ years and includes the concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra*.

The Q&A touched on turning their passion into a career, how they stay inspired and feed off of those around them and how they work together to accomplish a variety of goals. They discussed how – like most of us – they don’t always see eye to eye and sometimes they come to blows with each other, but also how they work through their differences and come out stronger as a unit.

One quote struck me during the discussion about leadership. “The who doesn’t matter as long as the job gets done.” This is so true for all of us – in and out of Active 20-30. It isn’t about pride or glory. It is about accomplishing what you have set out to do as a group.

*Zack DePue, being the youngest concertmaster of a full-time orchestra, was asked to describe his job. He did so much in the same way our local and national officers should describe their roles in the club: “I am the one who people look to for direction and to know how to behave (artistically, on stage and off, and toward the conductor and musicians)… I have to be ‘work before social’.”

Be it music, service or in our everyday lives, these are two clear messages that apply to us all.

A Happy Halloween

Picture this… a little boy trick-or-treating in his lady bug wings. Grinning ear to ear. Now imagine knowing that you and your club members are responsible for helping to bring about that smile. Isn’t that why we’re all here – to improve the lives of children in our community? At the same time, this little boy-turned-lady-bug helped indirectly improve the lives of other children as well as the women of Redwood Empire #1029.

The Redwood Empire Active 20-30 Club have long hosted a Halloween party for kids at a local shelter. Year after year, their excitement has been “peaked to the max”, as President Sarah Warner describes it, as they do arts and crafts activities, cookie and cupcake decorating, games and face painting with the kids. This year – a year of “redreaming” for the club – brought the event to a new level.

Last year, a member brought left over wings from costumes and shared them with some of the kids. After seeing the little boy excitedly donning his lady bug wings, the ladies of #1029 decided that the kids deserved real Halloween costumes and sought out on a mission to provide them. They extended their event budget, collected costumes their own kids had outgrown and reached out to friends from the Napa and Sacramento clubs who came to visit. The donation of costumes was so great that there were more costumes than kids and the club was able to hit after-Halloween sales to pick up costumes for next year’s event.

As Sarah recalls, one child began to take his costume off and return it to a member at the end of the event. When he was told that he got to keep it, he started to cry from joy. This, of course, was contagious and a few ladies got misty, too. (who wouldn’t?) At the end of the day, these are the stories that matter. Raising millions of dollars is fantastic, but touching one child’s life is what can make the biggest impact on our members and our hearts. Watching as clubs come together to support each other and seeing how a club comes together to do just a little bit more for the kids are some of the reasons that Active 20-30 truly is a great service organization.

Please post in the comments and share your stories about how one child or a local project has touched you and reaffirmed your place in service and in 20-30.

A huge thank you to Sarah for sharing this story with all of us.

Kids Care Clubs

I've dedicated several recent posts to exploring what individual Active 20-30 clubs and other, similar organizations are doing to impact the community. I am continually blown away by the number of people who are choosing to give back and the varied ways in which young adults like ourselves are able to make a difference. I am certainly not trying to diminish the work that any of our members are doing - you all are giving so much of your time, money and selves and it isn't going unnoticed. In fact, we need to do more to showcase the work you are doing.

With that said, I would like to use this post to highlight the work of our future members and leaders. Giving back to the community doesn't have to begin when you are eligible for membership in our club at age 20. It doesn't have to begin with your college sorority or fraternity. It doesn't have to wait to begin until you are a member of your high school's Key Club or you are a senior scout working on an Gold Award or Eagle Scout project. Service to the community and those in need can begin in elementary school and be fostered as children grow and mature and find their calling in the world. The idea of making service a way of life is what impresses me the most and I believe we each can make this happen.

Kids Care Clubs were founded almost 20 years ago by the Hands On Network, which I've featured here before. Kids Care Clubs are groups of young people who work together to help others in their communities and around the world. Clubs are formed in schools, faith based organizations and community community-based organizations, such as volunteer centers. Today there are more than 1,800 registered Clubs and 80,000 kids in the United States and countries including Australia, Canada, China, and Nepal.

In reading about the clubs and the projects their members undertook during Kids Care Week (leading up to Make a Difference Day on October 24th), I thought about how they align with our mission of improving the lives of children and developing young leaders. If there is a Kids Club chapter near you, I would challenge you and your club to find out how you can partner with them and support their projects. If there isn't one, would your club be willing to sponsor and assist with the development and maintenance of one? In my head, this could be a 'junior 20-30' that can really set the tone for how these boys and girls make service a way of life.

Please let me know if you are interested in learning more and taking on a long-term, in-the-trenches project to shape the next generation of Active 20-30 members. There are so many possibilities for extending our reach as an organization and impacting our local and national community. Please post in the comments your thoughts on how we can involve kids in making a difference just like you have committed to.

Medford's "Project Wish List"

The Medford club has been working on Project Wish List since shortly after their 2008 charter. It is an ongoing project that helps underscore the idea that small actions and donations by individuals can add up to a large impact on the community or a charitable partner. By coming together and giving what we each can, we don't have to wait for more members, the deep-pocket donors, a large fundraising event or even a significant grant to come through. We can start making a difference today.

Project Wish List "is not designed to be a huge donation by any one member, but a small steady stream of donations to remind our member that small efforts count too, and when we all work together we end up with something pretty great." This is how member Mariah Smith describes the project and I couldn't say it any better myself.

As a small, newly-formed club, the men and women of Medford 20-30 began compiling a list of community needs and selecting one charity each quarter to focus on. They direct their efforts to the day-to-day needs of the organization and identify ways in which the membership can come together, give a little and help collect physical items for the organization.

In the past, they have helped provided hygiene supplies for homeless teens served by the Maslow Project. The club also filled treasure chests with goodies for a non-profit that provided dental exams to children.

This quarter, the members selected a local hospital that is one of only three Children's Miracle Network sites in the state of Oregon. Families - over 50% of which are living below the poverty line - often travel hundreds of miles to reach the facility and spend long hours with little to do between tests and treatments. The club members were able to collect hygiene supplies (toothpaste, shampoo, etc.) as well as videos, craft items, coloring and reading books and so much more to make the families as comfortable as possible during their visits. The hospital needs an endless supply of these type of items and the club's involvement helped them fill their shelves a little longer.

This latest project, like the ones before it, was deemed a huge success by members and the recipients. It is because each person involved gathered a few items that the club could give a lot back to an organization in need who is merely working to help others. It is a team effort and something the members of Medford and Active 20-30 US should be very proud of.

If you'd like to find out how you can support Medford in their ongoing Project Wish List initiative, please contact Mariah or myself. I would love to see this project become funded by community donations as well as gifts from members across the US. This is an easily-replicatable project for any of our clubs to pick up. Please post in the comments if you have or would like to do something similar in your home club.

The Active 20-30 Story

Some of you may be aware that an Active 20-30 member created a video presentation for us a few years ago. If you haven’t had the opportunity to watch it, it is posted below for your viewing pleasure. There are a number of striking facts that underscore the need for our continued work. The video also highlights points in our history – did you know we’ve had Senators, leaders of industry and even a US President among our ranks?

Clubs have used this video in a number of ways. Some have watched it with a potential donor and told stories of how event sponsorship or underwriting would allow the club to serve more children. Others have used it to explain what is at the heart of the club to a potential member. Others have left the DVD on a loop, playing off to the side at a fundraising or recruitment event. However your club uses it, this is a dynamic and moving tool to help you to use to advance your club.

P.S. Does anyone know who deserves the credit for putting this together?

Social Media Starters

Active 20-30 Clubs, along with many other businesses and not-for-profits, are looking to social media tools and strategies to help achieve goals such as brand awareness. You’ve heard the buzzwords – Twitter, Facebook, blogging, YouTube, social networking – but do you know what they mean? More importantly, do you know what they mean for you and your club? How do you know which tool to use and when it is most applicable? Are you comfortable with when and how to pair tools to get the biggest impact?

If not, you aren’t alone. Especially in the not-for-profit and service organization worlds. The Case Foundation has partnered with the Goldhirsh Foundation and See3 Communications to bring us Gear Up for Giving. This is a month-long series of social media tutorials, to help nonprofits and their supporters understand how to use key tools and techniques to create awareness, catalyze civic action and cultivate new supporters and donors for their causes.

From “Social Media in Plain English” to “Mapping Your Organization’s Social Media Strategy” to “Ten Ways to Change the World Through Social Media”, the tutorials will hold your hand and guide you through the ins and outs of social media for non-profits.

Watch the videos that are applicable to you at your own pace. Share them with your club and project chairs. Try implementing strategies that make sense to you and pay attention to what works for you and what doesn’t… then share lessons learned with others. Please use the comments section of this blog post to share successes you have had and strategies you intend to employ.

If you’re on Facebook, make sure you friend me, join the Active 20-30 group and cause page, and friend members of your home club and the other clubs across the Americas and Europe.

To Quote :: Fundraising

"Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving."
- Rosso Hank

I couldn't have said it better myself. How will you teach someone the joy of giving to Active 20-30, your club's project, the national foundation (yes, we have a national foundation) or the kids in the community?

If It Were Only $1

Seth Godin recently posted the following to his blog:

If Craigslist Cost $1
Some things are better when they're not free. If Craigslist charged a dollar for every listing, what would happen? Well, the number of bogus listings and repetitive listings would plummet, making the site far easier to use. The number of scam artists using the site would go down, because it's more difficult to be anonymous when money changes hands... In the digital economy, magical things can happen when there is no friction. You can scale to infinity. On the other hand, sometimes you want friction. If you lead a group that allows anyone to join, for free, your group might be large, but it's not tight, it's not organized to make important change. Commitment slows things down in the short run, but ultimately aligns interests.

The last sentences stood out to me as significant and applicable to Active 20-30. Some of our clubs have dues upwards of $500 per year with additional fundraising minimums and have men lining up to join and a very active membership base. Why is that? Would the same thing happen if there was no membership fee or fundraising requirement? Sure, some of the people would step up, work every event, lead projects and take a personal interest in the development of the group. Others, however, would come and go as they pleased, feeling little – if any – obligation to their membership commitment.

Please post in the comments and let me know your take on whether a financial (and even verbal or written) commitment to Active 20-30 increases the likelihood that our members are more tightly aligned than if we were a non-dues based organization? This debate comes up periodically at the club level and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Past Actives are Still Active

Are you utilizing your past active members? Are you sure? The Eugene club recently held their annual Past Active Night, a gathering of past active and active members to network and catch up. Other clubs invite their past actives to socials, meetings, service projects and fundraisers. As our developed members pass their 40th birthdays, we must look for ways to keep them engaged. Yes, one of our founding principles was to allow young people to infuse new ideas into the organization and avoid being bogged down by “old men with old ideas.” This doesn’t mean that we must cast our members, their experience and their knowledge aside as they round the top of the hill.

We need to look at our past actives as a college or Greek house views its alumni. They have experienced many of the same challenges and successes as we are facing today. They have used trial-and-error to find solutions to the needs of the children around them. Many have started our in Active 20-30 exactly as you did – a young professional, perhaps, looking to better themselves, grow the organization, make friends and connections and have a little fun in the process.

Are your past actives frequently invited to attend meetings or planning sessions? Do you call upon them when you’re stuck on a problem or don’t want to “reinvent the wheel”? Do you look to them when you need additional manpower for a hands-on event or a fundraising gala? Have you asked them how they can serve the club – they are still networking and can act as a liaison to the community and potential members. They can mentor your board members or lend a confidential and sympathetic ear to your new president as she deals with many issues for the first time. They can make introductions to business leaders and professional contacts who may be willing to underwrite an event or buy a table. They can share stories and help impart the club’s history to members as they rise through the ranks.

Please post in the comments and share how you keep your past actives involved and what their role in your club is after they go past active. If you aren’t utilizing their knowledge and talents, how can you go about inviting them to get or stay involved?

Clusters of Clubs

We’ve all heard the numbers. We currently have 41 Active 20-30 Clubs are in four regions across 9 US states. One thing is for sure – there are lots of opportunities for growth. In order to give new charters the attention and support they deserve, National President Evan Hershey has created a national committee for charters separate from the Membership Growth and Development committee.


In addition to working with clubs in formation, the national Charter committee is responsible for identifying areas of the country in which we could and should grow new clubs. This isn’t a task left to Gioia and her regional representatives, but is the responsibility of all of our members. As Evan discussed at the fall midterm meeting, we must look at the towns near us that could benefit from having an Active 20-30 club.

Coming from a club with only one other chapter within (reasonable) driving distance, I fully appreciate the need to grow in a strategic manner. Locating new clubs near established ones helps to create a support system for the charter and well into the future. The possibility of chartering more clubs in the Midwest – Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan – gets me excited, personally.

Thanks to Tom Tobey of the Ft. Wayne Active 20-30 Club, we are able to see a visual representation of where we currently have clubs and can then make educated decisions on what communities to reach out to in an effort to charter a new club. You can see where there are clusters and where we have extreme growth potential.

In what cities or states would you like to see an Active 20-30 club? Where should we focus PR efforts to get our name an opportunities out? Do you have friends, relatives or co-workers in or around these areas that have a passion for improving their communities? As we begin planning for the next several years as a national organization, we need to also think about where and how we will grow our national presence. Please share your thoughts in the comments and reach out to Gioia or me if you know of anyone who would be a good charter member.