Georgia Council of Nonprofits

I had a wonderful opportunity yesterday as the keynote speaker at the Nonprofit Summit organized by the Georgia Center for Nonprofits to share thoughts on connected activism and the Social Citizens (beta) paper.

After my talk, the Q&A focused, as it naturally does with nonprofit professionals, on how to use the stuff.  Do I need a blog, which web browser should I be using, how much should I spend on a new computer?  I understand these questions, coming up to speed in the Connected Age can feel very overwhelming for those of us who came of age last century (doesn’t that sound old!) but we did have a moment of truth together.  Here’s how it went:

Questioner:  Do I really need to know about all this stuff?

Me (looking fabulous in a new suit by the way!): If we don’t figure out how to
incorporate Millennials into our nonprofit organizations, they’re just
going to start their own causes, overnight, using free tools.”

It was nice to see 500 heads nodding in unison.  Even if we don’t know exactly what to do about it yet, it was affirming for me to see the general consensus in the room, and probably in the larger nonprofit sector as a whole, that the Millennials have figured out how to self-organize very quickly and inexpensively and nonprofit organizations need their help to stay relevant.  It was nice moment, even if a bit angst filled.