I was visiting my college roommate in his hometown. I was in town for a CoolPeopleCare event, and my friend was gracious enough to allow me to stay with him for a night. Besides, I hadn’t seen him in over a year, and it’s always good to catch up.
We went to this local bar because he knew the bartender, which meant a deep discount on our drink order. As we sat sipping and reminiscing, I took a look around the joint. Like a lot of nightspots, the clientèle of this watering hole was young-faced. Glancing around, I guessed that most patrons were in their 20’s or early 30’s. The bartender herself was 27. Here, in this smoky bar with basketball games on TV was a bumper crop of YPs.
And none of them cared about the local YPO.
As I’ve already mentioned, it’s difficult but important for YPOs to attempt to reach out to all YPs in a given area, and not just those we deem upwardly mobile and eventually affluent. I’m not sure if any of the patrons that night had been targeted by a YPO, but my assumption was that it simply wasn’t their bag.
My pal is a great citizen. He is a public servant by profession, plays in a local softball league, takes his dog to the dog park, gets his truck washed every week, and is looking to make a career move. He is engaged, informed and one who has boomeranged back to his hometown after college.
But he’s never heard of the local YPO.
There could be several reasons for this. But, most telling is the fact that he and his crew don’t really care about a group targeting them in order to get them more engaged in shaping the future of the city. So what do we do with this?
The central question is this: who needs whom more? Does the local YPO need the people congregated in this bar more? Or do the lot of these loyal customers need the YPO more?
Here’s the answer: YPOs need YPs more. And that’s because cities desperately need YPOs.
In my opinion, the purpose of any YPO is be to engage its youngest citizens in order to help shape the future of a given community. And, like I mentioned before, cities are more and more diverse, and thus our YPOs need to mirror that.
I’m not sure what the local YPO could offer my friend and his friends that they don’t already have. They lead pretty happy lives and love where they live. But, he is considering moving to Denver because it’s a cool city where he could have a pretty good start at the next stage in life.
And if he makes that leap, it won’t be to look for friends, a girlfriend, a house, or a job (he has all of those). It will be because the future looks brighter closer to the Rocky Mountains than it does next to the Gulf of Mexico.
His bartender friend won’t follow him. But, his move also won’t mean that she’ll get involved in her local YPO. Because she doesn’t need it. But it sure does need her.
Because if it had her input on what to say to the mayor, city council, business leaders or community liaisons, it might keep my friend closer to home as the engaged and committed citizen he already is.