Case in point: The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network.  They are a young adult engagement network with branches around New York, Seattle, and major cities in-between.    At it’s core, HSAN has the same message that all young adult engagement organizations do, but it has a unique style and strategy which push it to success.

First, and you may have guessed this simply from their name, HSAN uses hip-hop to reach young adults.   Right off the bat there is the basis for community – shared culture.  Many organizations never even get this far as they attempt to recruit leadership indiscriminately.

Hip-hop is also leveraged in HSAN events to develop leadership, community consciousness,  and empower youth. The Seattle Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council has a list of events and programs focused on entrepreneurship

• Media Masters Young Producers Project:  Young adults collaborate with artists and professionals to learn technical, musical, and business skills necessary for success in the hip-hop industry.  They create their own content (music) and learn to distribute it online and through traditional  means.
• Hip-Hop Think Tank:   Positions  youth in advocacy and research positions.  Youth in the program perform policy analysis and propose new policies to better their community.
• Neighborhood and school committees which establish local talent contests, performances, forums, workshops, etc.

The Seattle HSAN knows what’s going on.  In their program, young adults are planning and participating in the organization.  Upper management appears to be industry insiders and community leaders, but there is clearly a lot of work being done by youth.

They also have excellently dove-tailed a lot of tasks.   Their programming spans many fields (arts, technology, entrepreneurship, business, politics, etc.) and simultaneously provides for the operation of their organization.  The Hip-Hop Think Tank provides a valuable research and development function, constantly generating fresh ideas and new policies to sustain the organizations momentum and image.  The various business events are creating a new generation of hip-hop artists which in turn are potential donors and managers of the HSAN.  Various activities not mentioned above do much the same: a political summit prepares community leaders, and neighborhood/school events spread the word all across the country.

In Moorhead, Minnesota there is even a Hip-Hop Congress which holds annual leadership conferences. It’s programming includes break dancing, tagging, and cultural diversity alongside a retinue of live DJs.

So what are they doing right? What is it about HSAN that is working so well?  They have speakers which are meaningful to their audience, that’s a good start.  Instead of stale community leaders they are listening to music industry insiders, artists, and hip-hop fans.  Hip-hop provides a common culture and middle ground where all the participants are equal, unlike many other parts of the community which put young adults at a disadvantage.  Programming and activities are centered on hip-hop; not all events overtly preach community activism or leadership, but since the events are run by young adults these lessons are covertly encoded into everything.

Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, you’re doing it right.

It is my goal to post two articles each week.  One article will be like the preeceding posts, and the second one will be shorter.  These shorter posts are intended to be more like updates instead of full articles, presenting things to keep an eye on or to mention events which should not be forgotten.

Happy new semester,

Daniel

One frequently recounted issue in population studies is rural flight. Over time populations shift to favor cities as people perceive there are economic benefits to leaving rural areas. The University of Nebraska’s Rural Initiative is challenging the validity of that view with a new program.

Connecting Young Nebraskans (herein CYN) is an organization which has been founded by the Rural Initiative to develop social networks composed of young Nebraskans. The networks are intended to foster communication across the state for young adults and professionals. Link to their Facebook page here.

Their first event, a self-titled summit, will take place October 28-29 in Kearney, Nebraska. The Connecting Young Nebraskans Summit is intended to break down barriers in communication between rural and urban dwellers and address the misguided belief that the only open doors for young professionals are in urban areas. Their keynote speaker are a father-son entrepreneur team who run a technology firm based out of Atlanta, GA which is doing a lot of business in rural Nebraska- including remodeling an old library in Loup City to create a technology center.

Last week I had a chance to discuss the CYN Summit with Brett Neverve, who is a member of the summit’s Marketing Committee.   Brett currently works for the McCook Economic Development Corporation in McCook, NE managing their social network profiles. Alongside this role, he is President of McCook’s Young Leaders – an organization ran by local young adults and is involved with the town’s Hometown Competitiveness plan.

Although a formal program has not yet been released, Brett informed me that the event will focus on more than entrepreneurship. Other sections will discuss civic engagement and a lot of emphasis will be placed on networking among attendees.  Kearney was chosen for this year’s summit because of it’s cental location makes it equally accessible for people from all corners of the state.  In the future, the location will move to different towns across Nebraska.

In effect, this event takes CYN in the direction of a young professionals organization akin to what many communities already have. The main advantages of CYN are its scale and management. Young professionals groups often are run by Chambers of Commerce or other groups which are not particularly well suited to deal with young adults. In contrast, CYN is managed by young adults with assistance from the University of Nebraska’s Rural Initiative. The group’s state-wide focus allows for a larger resource base, a greater population which benefits from their work, and hopefully will help rural communities show professionals what opportunities they have.

Registration for the two-day event is $50 and the form and additional details can be found here.

I have seen a lot of opportunities in rural areas for professionals and university graduates. Certainly, not every community has opportunities in every field and a certain amount of specialization occurs in each community. If one town has a large hospital, towns around it will likely focus their efforts in other fields such as finance or public works. Hopefully groups like CYN can help spread the word about these opportunities.

1. Young adults display strong identification with the community, but weak affiliation with communal institutions.
2. Time – poverty.  People increasingly have less time they are willing to devote to communal activities.
3. The way in which an individual chooses to become active in their community changes with age.
4. Size isn’t important.  You can’t measure the success of a program by the number of attendees or participants.
5. Personal relationships are more important than how you have branded your program.
6. Common interest among group members is the most important variable in communal behaviour.

Identification with a group is a strong motivator.  This research describes something that I have similarly discovered working on engagement projects in the past – that even though young adults may appear not to be interested in the community (if you measure through traditional community institutions) they are in fact strongly identifying with their community.  Many programs initiated by existing community institutions may be treated suspiciously for just this reason.  Young adults are accustomed to living in a world they are alienated from and have little control over.

This problem can be overcome in a lot of ways.  New organizations can ignore the image problem older institutions have.  In my project,  I was able to connect with young adults because I was one of them.  The speaker matters at least as much as the message.

Common interest is the single most important factor in communal behaviour.  In the Australian Jewish News article, they found that “While young Jews have varied interests, often they would like to pursue them in the company of other young Jews”.   The shared activity may be less important than the company it is performed with. 

What would a program built on this research look like? It would likely be a number of organizations, projects, and events with small membership, but which fosters strong group identity.  The activities of these organizations would be varied and their schedules flexible, but the common interest and personal relationships sustain the project or organizations.  They are low maintenance, type-B, and compared to what many programs look like – organic instead of highly structured.

Things are a bit different across the pond.  A decade ago the United Kingdom instituted a new way to bring youth and government together: the UK Youth Parliament (YP).  The YP holds one session a year and each session is staffed by a retinue of youth 11 – 18 years old elected by their peers in local elections across the country.  Voter turnout for each of the last two elections has been over 500,000 and they elected a body of 600 representatives.

What do they do?  Exactly what parliament does: they meet and discuss issues important to the country.   Every year they publish a manifesto (party platform, for Americans) detailing what they believe to be the most important issues facing youth in the UK.  The manifesto sets the stage for debates and discussions at the Youth Parliament session.

What do the youth of UK want?  Thanks to the Youth Parliament’s manifesto, it’s easy enough to tell.  Certainly the manifesto is not all inclusive, and it is geared toward political and social issues instead of the economic solutions often preferred in regional development organizations, but there is a wealth of information in this document.  Some sample concerns include:

• Negative portrayal of youth in media
• Keeping university tuition fees down
• Expansion of local government-youth interaction
• Rural development

We can’t just pay lip service to youth engagement.  Youth are savvy enough to pick up on instances where adults are asking, but not listening.  Case in point:  In the USA, we sometimes have student members of school boards.  These representatives very often have no voting rights, no committee memberships, and no authority.  Ask the youth in these schools how much they care about being represented in this kind of structure.

By contrast, the UK invests legitimacy into youth councils and the YP.  When a municipal government proposed budget cuts to youth related services, they required budget analysts and executives to justify these budget cuts to a local youth council.  Ultimately this committee was charged with trimming down the budget in a way that preserved the most value for youth (link to story).

Although the YP has had its share of setbacks, it provides a number of benefits to youths and their communities.  Participating youth are able to articulate policy preferences and have an organization which is responsive to their preferences.  The community benefits by receiving additional feedback, which can be used to refine government services and the programs of community organizations.

Economic or business development firms may benefit from these kinds of organizations as well.    Youth councils are potential sources of valuable marketing data and can also provide a channel of distribution for goods and services.

There are plenty of good ways to get a similar program started.  Simply bringing together a number of youth and asking them to talk about their community is one way.  In 2008 the McCook Economic Development Corporation brought together a number of youth to discuss ways to improve their rural Nebraska community.  The result?  McCook’s Young Leaders (MYL)– a non-profit organization composed youth and young adults.   Since then, MYL has gone on to produce a large First Night festival.  The youth had to write grants and request permits from the city.

Youth organizations are good for a lot of things and are not exceptionally tricky to establish.   Community support and a little communication can go a long way.  Ask anyone involved in the UK Youth Parliament.