Who's Listening to America's Youth?

Drew McManus, co-founder of Bring Light, an innovative site where donors and charities build communities to fund specific charitable projects, told me that when they were designing their site, they looked at lots of others, trying to get a bead on the new generation of donors. "One day, I came across the MySpace page of young woman in college. She had posted a note to her friends, saying that her rent had just gone down by $40, and she wanted to give that money to charity. She wanted to know if anyone had any ideas of what might be a good cause." Drew laughs. "It took my breath away. When I was her age, that extra forty bucks would have gone to beer."

Are these young people just talking to one another? Is anyone listening, really listening, to them? Trying to discover what the generation dubbed the "Millennials" cares about?

Alexander Steed is. As you read this, he's setting out on a cross-country tour to meet, interview, and report on young men and women who are using the Internet to leverage their social and political power. He calls them Millennial Activists - youth who combine an interest in social causes with digital fluency.

Where did the idea for the tour come from? Partly from frustration about how his generation is reflected in the traditional media. "Some of the questions that are asked seem completely irrelevant to me," he said. "Like the one that got a lot of play earlier this year - 'What's better, sixties activism, or what's going on now?' How can you compare the two when the Internet has changed everything?" He said that was enough to encourage him to get on the road to find out what his generation is really thinking and doing.

So, this fall, Alex is traveling from east to west and back again, convening groups of young men and women across the U.S. He'll be in 30 cities, including Pittsburgh, Nashville, Ann Arbour, Salt Lake City, Dallas, and Scranton.

How did he get the word out? Through the Internet, of course. "I started with couchsurfing.com, [http://www.couchsurfing.com] a social network built around people who have free places to stay, and I used message boards like craigslist, [http://www.craiglist.com]" And he contacted networks and blogs, asking people to put him in touch with Millennials who are doing interesting things around civic engagement, activism, and social engagement - and all using the Internet as a tool. More than 200 people responded, and Alex was introduced to 500 in total. And, yes, he's interested in hearing from you. (Should you be wondering how the tour is being funded, it's made possible through donations from people like us. Every dollar we donate will be matched by the Case Foundation. There's info on his site about how much has been raised so far, and how everyone can help.)

What does he intend to do with the information? Written, audio, and video posts will appear on his blog, as well as on a range of activist sites including epolitics, Future Majority, and change.org. He also wants to invite the mainstream media to listen in. "Seventeen magazine will publish some of my road stories. It's really important to get this information out to all kinds of people, including different generations."

You can be sure that I'll share Alex's story with my corporate clients. He's what I call a Next New Radical - someone who wants their first career to be about doing good. It's no secret that organizations are eager to find ways to attract bright young people like Alex. My HR contacts tell me that one of the first questions Millennials ask at job fairs or interviews is, "What's your environmental program?" And, yes, even in today's uncertain economic climate.

My clients and I have conversations about how programs that encourage New Radical Innovation (that is, driving change from inside) can make an organization much more appealing to young people. And that, as Alex makes abundantly clear, it all begins with listening.

Perhaps poet Mary Oliver summed this generation up best when she wrote, "Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?"

Please share your thoughts about the Millennial generation in the U.S. or around the world by commenting below, or email me directly at [e-mail].

Comments

[Skylarstar]

This article made my day. I was political at that age and ready to take on the world. What we see in the mainstream media about young people is so dismal. Wow, the New Radicals.....wonderful to see the light carried on.

[Gagnier]

I read your piece and kudos indeed. Working at an organization comprised of all Millennials, we just completed a report about our Democracy 2.0 Project, where we have been working with Millennials across the country discussing a vision for an upgraded democracy.

Check it out at mobilizedotorg.blogpsot.com.

[Saidas]

Well I'm glad they finally decided to join the party. Where were they in 2004? 2000? The internet was around then. We would have had a different country, and probably world, if they had come sooner.

What I remember hearing during those two elections went someting like this, "Both parties and all politicians are the same." "My vote won't make a difference."It isn't relevant to my world", etc. It seemed like just plain apathy and self centeredness to me.

When I first became of voting age, I voted not just for me but for everyone else too. I had heard of the Supreme Court , US foreign policy, taxes, energy, etc.

Even though they have come late to the party, I'm glad they have decided to come. I hope they aren't expecting a participation trophy; we don't have the money for those now.

[alexsteed]

This comment seems hostile, and I wonder why the hostility is aimed at young people. "Oh - If the young people would just vote, we would have won," seems to be the sentiment. Am I reading this correctly? Weren't their forces much more sinister at play that led to the successes of the Bush administration over the past eight years?

[alexsteed]

Sure, the Internet existed in 2000 and 2004, but the dynamism and interactivity that presently defines Internet communication that helps to bring young people to the table in an interactive and an authentic way - in a fluid way - certainly did not exist. Sure, it was emerging in 2004, and it set the groundwork for what we're seeing now, but our ability to be heard / understood is far superior to how it's ever been in the past. That is, from what I am hearing, a large piece of what's playing into greater levels of civic participation on the part of the youth. Whereas before, one could say, "It doesn't matter - both parties are the same," and a shrieky, inarticulate liberal Democrat would get high and mighty and tear the young person down for having an understandable opinion, that can still happen, but at least there's more of a chance that someone on Facebook or somewhere else might reach out and explain that this isn't necessarily the case. Also, for those who (validly) still participate in third party politicking using the Internet, whereas supporting a TPC once meant supporting an alternative voice to the binary American politic, it now translates into actually having that alternative message heard by people.

[alexsteed]

A prime example of this can be seen during the Republican debates last year where Ron Paul, a Republican with third party tendencies, financed nearly completely by Internet users, called Giuliani out on his nearly religious touting of neo-conservative ideals as justified by September 11th (you'll remember that he is the only candidate on the left or the right strong enough to bring the concept of blow-back into the picture).

[alexsteed]

Politics now is ever-more interactive and authentic, especially for young people.

Further:

1) Sure - young people came out in poor numbers in 2000, but their participation went up in 2004. As I remember it, Al Gore, before his "rebirth", did seem very similar to the George Bush most of us knew at the time (we all love these very-partisan Saturday Night Live Palin skits, but we forget that the show, very formative to the political consciousness of young people, painted Gore and Bush as two peas in a pod at the time). Also - perhaps the institutions we were learning about the system from were somewhat flawed. Again, the Internet existed in 2000 and 2004, but it didn't exist as a truly two-way medium until after lessons were learned from Howard Dean's campaign. The interactivity of the modern Internet helps to break up the traditional ways in which we learn about the electoral system, which obviously didn't do a very good job of engaging us in a meaningful way beforehand.

[alexsteed]

2) With all of the corruption that led to Bush's wins in both 2000 and 2004, it seems strange to me that the hostilities or suspect attitudes of young people regarding the political process, though seemingly confused, would be refutable. I wouldn't blame young people as an equal element in the losses for the Democrats in 2000 and 2004 - I would identify the forces that led to the successes of the Bush administration, including the ineptitude of candidates to resonate in a real way on the side of the Democrats, as part of the reason that the youth, until recently, felt separated from the process.

[Jennifer Kushell - Huffpost Blogger]

Julia, this is a fantastic project. If you ask me, there aren't enough people talking about the GOOD things young people are doing out there! I'm definitely going to look into this tour.

I'm thrilled to learn about it myself, since I've spent the last 15 years working on this very thing - trying to understand and support the efforts of young people in over 100 countries who are doing extraordinary things with their lives and careers...while spreading the word about them to the media, multinational corporations, governments, associations and everyday people. I like to think of it as "positive peer pressure". Plus, the network effect can insight powerful things!

Please check out our work too at http://www.YSN.com - it stands for your success network. We created it to support the one billion young people entering the workforce, many of whom are setting out to do good for the world. (There's a video off the home page with our mission and interviews with kids from dozens of countries that's really compelling.) There are thousands of them on YSN who represent all things this tour is about.

These issues you write about are things we all should be thinking about. I love it when people get behind wonderful causes like this, especially when they inspire so many to launch their careers doing something profound. It really sets the tone for the rest of their lives.

I'll certainly be following your work from now on.

Kudos to you.

[Julia Moulden - Huffpost Blogger]

Jennifer: Fantastic! Whenever I speak about the New Radicals, I talk about how it's a worldwide trend. Thrilled to learn about your site. I'm sure the people Alex is connecting with will be, too. All good things, Julia