Building A New Tomorrow

Like many young professionals, Ann Elkins, twenty-nine, looks for opportunities to stay ahead in her field. So last spring, the Minneapolis advertising executive took a class for professionals looking to enhance their skills in garnering new business. Elkins and her team were assigned to create a mock marketing plan to help United Way increase donations among people ages eighteen to thirty.

To research the project, Elkins’s team arranged a thirty-minute meeting with Jacinda Adams, United Way Emerging Leaders program manager. Elkins expected a short chat to help understand the organization better; instead, she and her classmates stayed for two-and-a-half hours, learning everything they could. It was during the meeting that Elkins first heard about Emerging Leaders, a program of United Way that targets a new generation of givers. The goal of the Emerging Leaders program is a simple yet substantial one: creating the next generation of leaders for the Twin Cities community.

With older donors retiring, it is important to get young people involved in volunteering and financial giving. “We needed to find a way to connect the region’s future leadership—our younger donors and potential donors—into United Way,” says Lauren Segal, CEO of Greater Twin Cities United Way. “This would allow us to continue and expand the important work we do in the community.” United Way, however, knew it wasn’t going to be an easy sell; after all, Generations X and Y have different expectations on donating than their parents and grandparents did. “Younger generations don’t give just because their boss says they should,” Segal says. “They want to get involved first—to feel like they can make a difference with their time—, and financial support will come as they feel more aligned with the organization.”

So in 1999, United Way Emerging Leaders—a program that combines volunteering, networking, philanthropy, and leadership education for up-and-coming leaders in the Twin Cities community—was born. Although the Emerging Leaders membership skews toward the under-forty-five, corporate set, participants range in age from eighteen to sixty-five and are from all types of work backgrounds. Regardless, most members share similar characteristics: drive, energy, and a strong desire to help others. “The typical Emerging Leader is an individual who is dedicated to United Way’s mission of improving lives and strengthening communities,” Adams says. “They really care about community and quality, and they’ll do their best for future generations.”

The focus of Emerging Leaders coincided with the team’s marketing assignment; on a deeper level, however, it struck a chord with Elkins and her three teammates. Wanting to learn more, all promptly agreed to give the program a try on the grass roots level by helping to paint a battered women’s shelter at a United Way partner agency. “It was probably one of the best experiences of my life,” Elkins says. “All of us became big believers in giving back that day.”

Elkins and her teammates went on to write a marketing plan to create more awareness of United Way within a younger audience. But her inspiration extended far beyond her class project and her hands-on work that day. She became an Emerging Leader and started a marketing committee with Adams’s help. “I took this class to promote my own career, but to walk out with something like this was completely different than what I expected,” she says.

Elkins is now one of 13,000 Emerging Leaders who have found a meaningful way to connect with other young professionals, gain leadership skills, and, perhaps most significantly, affect change in the metro area.