Young and old alike must learn to share
Boomer-built associations might need to change to serve new members
“These kids are so lazy. They just won’t work the way we did.”
“This younger generation is so selfish and impatient in their approach to social change. They don’t understand the importance of the political process the way we did.”
I suspect that every baby boomer reading these words has been party to conversations in which charges like the ones above were made, usually to nodding heads all around.
Being a member of the aging demographic bubble, I have heard such commentaries more times than I can count. Nearly all associations have struggled with the generational changes among leaders, members and/or constituencies.
Most membership organizations are struggling to engage the groups often called Generation X and Y. Two clients have looked at this issue systematically. Their research and analysis have led me to a number of preliminary observations and a single conviction: that the only thing accurate about the criticism offered above is that Generation X and Y do not engage “the way” that boomers and their elders do.
Younger adults are inclined to be every bit as generous, civically, as their elders. They are not, however, willing to accept a rigid structure for engagement. They want to engage more situationally.
They will grab hold willingly and generously of a time-limited initiative or project with specific, set goals. They are less likely to agree to serve on a committee or even participate in a chapter that requires them to attend regular, year-round meetings with no specific goal.
Over the short-term that means organizing around special task forces or initiatives. Over the long-term it means allowing members to devote large chunks of leadership time for a year or 2, but not requiring them to work up through the ranks over 6, 8 or 10 years.
Younger people also want to be in direct contact with the people they serve. Engaging in a project or changing a policy will not be as gratifying as serving food in a soup kitchen, building a home or mentoring a colleague.
Only after repeatedly seeing and interacting with the people they serve will many younger members be open to working on the infrastructure of an organization – because the connection will be more clear.
This leads to another observation: American boomers and their elders tend to assume that political action is the way to make the world a better place. My parents came of age in the era of the New Deal and World War II, when the federal government was changing the world for the better.
We boomers grew up in the era of the civil rights movement and the war in Vietnam, when, in order to make the world a better place, we mobilized to change the government.
Those younger than boomers grew up in the post-Watergate era. They tend to assume that government is slow, intractable and rather distasteful. So, it is avoided when possible.
Boomers would be attracted to an organization in part through the value of political action. Younger people need to see a more direct value of membership. They may come, over time, to see political action as part of a solution, but are never likely to view it as the centerpiece.
Having suggested these broad patterns, I should note that some groups will be much more politicized than others, across ages. And, it also strikes me that the anti-globalization and pro-Howard Dean movements provide evidence of a move back toward political action on the part of some younger people.
We may have reached a point where organizations boomers built and sustained must fundamentally be changed – at least in style and structure – in order to continue to serve their missions through another generation.
If so, the key question is how to make that palatable to those of us entering our inflexible years. One partial answer is that the change can often be articulated in terms of shared, established values.
People didn’t join or commit themselves to associations in order to serve a structure. The structure evolved in order to serve common ends. So, as times and people change, if members are still committed to those ends, they may have to also be open to new structures.
The generational debate is not really about being industrious or lazy, nor about being generous or selfish. It is about “the way we did (things)” and the ways a larger “we” can get them done in the future.
© Pat Nichols, May 2004, Association Trends. All rights reserved