Getting the Most From Your Millennial Grants Professional
A few years ago at a conference, a grants professional explained to me that grant seeking was difficult for him because of an “incompetent 24-year-old kid” in his office who assisted with his organization’s grant efforts. He said he did not think that young people had the skills to be successful grants professionals. I have heard echoes of similar frustrations from other grants professionals more than once since that day.
As a successful Millennial grants professional myself, I find this tension in our profession troubling, especially since other professionals my age report they have encountered similar ageism in our profession during their professional careers. I believe that misunderstandings from both sides of the “generation gap” can cause frustration and tension in a grants or development office.
While we twenty-somethings do need and should welcome guidance and mentoring from veteran members of the field, we also have skills that make us valuable as grants professionals. Here are some specific skills your Millennial grant writer likely brings to your organization that you can leverage to improve your grantseeking success – together.
1. Millennials are information addicts. Growing up with the Internet has made Millennials good at looking through a huge amount of content for specific information. We researched our middle school science projects online and cannot remember a time when anything we wanted to know was not just a few mouse clicks away. This makes Millennials ideal researchers. Need to find out how many Native Americans hold bachelors degrees in a conglomeration of rural Census tracts? Need to dig through a 50-page RFA looking for whether a specific cost is allowable? Your Millennial can find the answer quickly.
2. Millennials love teamwork. Putting together competitive applications requires extensive collaboration. You need other people to provide data, budget figures, MOUs, and other details. Since we engaged in lots of team activities in our education and upbringing, Millennials love just this kind of collaboration. According to Peter Brinckerhoff, Millennials, “more than any other generation in American history…are wired for collaboration and for working in groups” (Generations: The Challenge of a Lifetime for Your Nonprofit, 2007). Bringing a team mentality to the grant seeking process, Millennials can pull together key constituents in your organization or project.
3. Millennials are achievement-oriented. I’ve heard people say that Millennials are used to getting trophies for everything short of breathing. It’s largely true – we grew up with standardized tests, competitive sports, and helicopter-parents. We were constantly being measured for success and coached in improvement. While there are drawbacks to this, it has given most of us the drive to measure results and continuously make improvements. In a fundraising climate in which more and more funders are demanding evaluation and accountability, the Millennial grants professional’s values are in perfect alignment. Millennials value transparency and access to information, which funders appreciate if not require.
(A tip if you are responsible for managing a Millennial: This commitment to evaluation and improvement relates to personal job performance as well. Millennials expect regular feedback – both positive and negative – to help them make improvements in their work. You will frustrate your Millennial and deflate her motivation if your evaluation of her work is sporadic or vague.)
4. Millennials embrace diversity. Millennials went to school with people of all ethnicities, sexual orientations, disabilities, and economic backgrounds. We are accustomed to seeing a broad variety of people in leadership positions. Generally, Millennials have inclusive social circles and are comfortable working with different kinds of people. This can make the Millennial grants professional adept at working with a diverse staff as well as the target population you serve (which may include disabled, minority, or low-income individuals).
5. Millennials bring nonprofit volunteer experience to the workplace. USA Today reports that Millennials are the most civic-minded generation since the Greatest Generation. Studies show that more than 80% of Millennials volunteered in high school and a majority of those continued to do so through college. This means that Millennials are coming to the workplace already experienced with the nonprofit sector, its priorities, and how it works. Many are seeking careers in the nonprofit sector that will allow them to pursue work that reflects their idealism and global perspective.
Learning to take advantage of the strengths that Millennials offer the grants profession can help organizational leaders improve productivity by optimizing the unique contributions of each member of their multi-generational team.
This article was originally published by CharityChannel press: https://charitychannel.com/getting-the-most-from-your-millennial-grants-professional/