by Richard A. Brown, Vice President, American Express Philanthropy - Today's emerging leaders are the best educated, the most diverse and the most technologically savvy generation in our nation's history. Generation Xers & Yers are committed to serving in the nonprofit sector, are passionate about the mission-driven organizations where they work, and many have been actively serving in the sector as community volunteers since a very young age. Their commitment to "do something" is evident in the associations they have created to organize themselves, the organizations they have established to tackle intractable social issues, and the hard won achievements they have secured supporting established nonprofit organizations.
Moreover, as more NextGen opt to enter and pursue careers in the sector, a tension exists between the generations that has been documented in studies, highlighted in surveys and referenced in numerous articles and blogs. At the heart of this issue is a tedious aversion by some members of the baby boom generation to fully embrace this new cohort of emerging leaders and accept the true value they bring to the table. This, of course, is not universal phenomena because there are some stellar emerging leaders at the helm of a number of critical nonprofit organizations on both the national and local levels. However, there appears to be an overall reluctance to organizationally accommodate these NextGen leaders and genuinely appreciate the different, and sometimes unorthodox, approaches and strategies they deploy to get the job done. The accompanying article, which I authored for a graduate course, addresses this issue and provides some possible alternatives to the status quo.
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