new leaders council

Our good friends at the New Leader's Council are working hard to have 10 chapters in 2010 but to do this the need the funds to ensure the new chapters can stand up.

Enter Howard Dean... No stranger to the power of young people to lead organizations or campaigns, Dean is pitching in to help the NLC get to their goal with an event September 15th in Washington DC.

Despite best efforts a new NLC chapter will not be in Kansas City ... again this year.... But I'm enthusiastic about the new chapters starting in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Chicago, Missoula, Sacramento, and San Diego. Big shout outs to our friends in Missoula, Atlanta, and Sac who are doing great youth organizing there as well.

"NLC's five-month political entrepreneurship program trains individuals on a variety of subjects - fundraising, campaign management, public relations, technology, etc. NLC's hope is to fill "the bench" for future elections, businesses, media organizations, think tanks and non-profits with a strong network of highly skilled progressive leaders that can work together toward positive change."

Get your tickets here.

Eric Greenberg author of the opensource book Generation We and unbelievable supporter of the youth movement, spent an afternoon with the folks at Google as part of their authors series talking about his work on the book and the future of our generation. Incidentally, Greenberg was announced by Adam Borelli founder of the New Leader's Council

Before I launch into the insanity of Inauguration Day let me just say that some of the events I attended leading up to Jan 20th's swearing-in where unbelievable. Including the Netroots Nation ball which was organized, delicious, ample in drink tickets which came with your purchased ticket, and all around the best event I attended.

However, I was first able to attend the New Leader's Council cocktail party where many of the DC fellows were in attendance. I've talked about the NLC quite a while back, but as a refresher its a training organization for youth who are in entry level political jobs who want to gain the skills necessary to climb the latter - but don't want to quit their jobs. Many times in training programs an applicant can't have a job because they are sent to a campaign or an org for 3-6 months. So, for folks who don't have the freedom to leave their life don't have a real option for advanced training.

The NLC provides that kind of quality training at that advanced level but does so in an area that is near to its fellows but on Saturdays for the course of what amounts to be a semester.

The theme of the NLC event was 10 by 2010. They have chapters now going strong in LA, San Francisco, Boston, DC, and NYC and are eager to grow to 10 within the next year. I know there is someone excited to develop one in Oklahoma City and there is buzz of one starting in Kansas that I'm trying to push along as well.

At a time when so many organizations are faltering because of the economy or the Madoff scandal and other organizations spend tons of money on parties or concerts, the NLC has tangible results in leadership development that grows young people into a generation of political and organization workers.

Their event on Sunday was great. I was able to connect with old friends and meet with new ones. Newly elected State Rep from Maine spoke, as did California Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

Monday I had a great lunch meeting with a few people who are also leaders in the youth movement. While the purpose of the meeting was truly just to catch up, shop talk ensued and we shared our fears of the new administration only paying a lip-service to the youth movement and trying to funnel us all into "service" rather than meaningful policy initiatives.

For example: one member of our party lamented that the Obama Administration didn't have a youth representative working with any economic recovery or jobs packages or efforts. There is a huge focus on labor and helping older workers develop new tech skills so they have options in the jobs market. However, there is an entire generation graduating ... possibly the largest graduating class in our nation's history who is just now entering the work force with these skills already... and yet our generation has a 20% unemployment rate.

Why aren't young people or a rep from our generation anywhere near the table when discussing these issues, particularly since we have a much higher unemployment rate even with the skills policy makers say are necessary to get jobs??

Our further fear/discussion was that the Obama Administration will simply continue to pat us on the head and we will miss out on any real meaningful possibilities of engagement. When the Administration Youth Liaison met with leaders of the youth movement she commented that the one thing the youth movement wanted as a unit was a seat at the table. The fear we discussed at lunch was that those seats at the table will be minimized to meaningless outreach tools that merely create an appearance of engagement.

Perhaps we have a complete lack of trust from our years of experiencing what I just described to believe that an administration will actually consider us assets to policy initiatives.

Initial thoughts, I will have more on the insane disasters we saw at the actual Inaugural ceremonies and the pointlessness of the Youth Ball that had so much promise but in the end was a total FAILURE.

Last month in a fit of irritation I lamented the lack of youth balls to honor the great participation, volunteerism, and voting power that Millennials had this election to get President Elect Barack Obama to the White House. It wasn't long after that MTV announced they were working on a ball - then there became an official Obama Youth Ball (for $75).

Yesterday Declare Yourself announced their hawt ball action "A New Birth of Citizenship" with Host Jessica Alba and Musical Performance by Maroon 5.

"Norman Lear, the TV producer, and founder of Declare Yourself, said, "This Inauguration marks an important moment in our country's history - one that allows us all to be proud of how far we've come and the direction we're going. Our event celebrates this moment and helps motivate us all to become more active in our communities on the local and national level by getting involved, giving back, and being proud to be an American, born again."

Cost for the event is a not so youth friendly $250.

But wait... there's more! Today my good buddy from Kansas Kevin from Do Something sent me an invite to their event on January 19th the day before the Inauguration

"Do Something is holding a Social Action Boot Camp in conjunction with the 2009 Presidential Inauguration and we want you to be part of it. Join your fellow community organizers, activists and youth leaders for a day of workshops, innovative speakers and networking."

Place: Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus, Intercultural Center (entrance at 37th St and O St)
Time: 9:00am to 6:00 pm (Breakfast and Lunch Included)
Cost: FREE (*Attendees are responsible for travel and accommodation costs.)

I think I also volunteered to do something in my sleepy stouper this morning, but I'm not sure what it is.... so I encourage you to stop by and say hi and support DoSomething.org

The New Leaders Council is hosting an event Sunday January 18th from 4-6pm at the Watergate Office Building for a very youth friendly $35. The NLC works to promote the young leaders who are working daily to crate a better world with 3 major chapters in NYC, San Francisco, and Washington DC. Space is limited, so RSVP ASAP.

The DNC Youth Council has also created a spreadsheet on google docs (this isn't working for me suddenly, I'm investigating) that helps chart the information for who, what, when, and where key youth events will be held in the days before and on Inauguration Day. These include the Human Rights Campaign Event, Netroots Nation (which I'm told is nearly sold out), as well as others. Check it out to find out all your youth ball info. Hope to see you all in just over a week!

This week was a big one for da yoots. (can you tell My Cousin Vinny is on?) Skyline Public Works released a statement and launch of their new youth funding program the Go Grants The Program commits to giving $250,000 contributions to an organization in each state over the next ten years that specifically targets youth participation and engagement in sustaining organizations that continue work for elections and after.

It prompted me to take a deeper look into funding for youth programs, who gives, what they give, how they give, and what the partisan break down of funding to these groups is.

What I found with a simple OpenSecrets is a significant divide between Young Democrats and Young Republicans in funding. If you look under the 527 section you see that the YD’s received about $1.6million for the 2006 election cycle and made about $1.5million in expenditures.

What do you suppose the Young Republicans did?