For many of us, the reason we chose to work in the nonprofit industry is to create meaningful change in the world. We’re proud that we are raising money for our causes, and helping those affected by the mission. We believe we are creating meaningful change by raising a ton of money. But we haven’t considered creating meaningful change by providing experiences in the world’s future, our youth! These youth volunteers are going to remember their experiences with us for the rest of their lives. They are the future donors of the organization, future board members, and future committee members. They bring about new ideas, connections, excitement, and energy that many of our organizations are desperately lacking. Additionally, these youth volunteers have tons of classmates, friends, student groups that can be tapped into as resources for the organization if set up correctly.

Very early in my career, I would see young kids coming into an organization’s office to inquire about community projects. Many times they needed to earn credits for school, do a specific project to earn their boy or girl scout badge but occasionally a parent would be encouraging their child to give back to their community. Even with youth walking right into our doors, there is a huge gap in youth engagement in nonprofits. As you reflect on the number of youth that have walked into your office doors, think about what opportunities you could have provided to engage them.

Most of the time, this type of engagement falls back on local leadership. The true leaders of the organization create this type of opportunity at the field level. Many of you look to your national leaders or office level executives to tell you to create this change. You will receive guidelines from your national offices or local leadership that outline committees, boards, and event day volunteers. Do most of us know how to provide engagement opportunities that don’t include folding T-shirts for an upcoming walk or run?

One major issue for nonprofit teams is a lack of staff, time, and resources. The truth is, we are under-resourced and even thinking about taking on an extra project while staring down timelines of an upcoming event, budget deadlines, donors, and everything else on your plate, doesn’t sound like it’s worth the ROI. Many of you reading this now would say the extra effort isn’t worth it. We will make excuse after excuse as to why we can’t make that time or how much extra time it would take. I was like that too, at first.

In almost every organization I’ve worked or volunteered for, it’s always the same message of being “volunteer lead and staff supported.” The truth is that so many times we are too reliant on our staff and leaving out a critical piece of youth initiatives and engagement. When we talk about the lifetime value of a donor, imagine having connected with a donor in their late teens and early twenties and you provided them with a little extra time and energy that made such an impact in their life that they still recall that experience. These youth will continue to follow that organization for life and continue to be a positive message in the community and our world. This resource is often overlooked and a true missed opportunity.