It’s no surprise that until the downturn in the economy many Generation X employees broke from the corporate herd being led by egotistic and narcissistic Baby Boomers to start their own ventures or even start the competition for their former employees. I have to say after 10 years of having creative efforts thwarted, squelched or even redirected. I’ve started collecting ideas and seeds for efforts that I’d like to pursue outside of my job if things don’t change within the next several months. I’ve even started budgeting and saving to sustain myself while I’m growing my business. Times are hard but I have a feeling I’m not alone. It might be better to take a risk.

@rosetta — some key words of your own : “When you speak to older nonprofit leaders, especially ones that founded their organizations, they will tell you that they had no experience when they became ‘leaders.’ So why does Gen Y have to be held to a higher standard? Baby Boomers had less education and less experience that Gen Y when they ROCKED the women’s movement & the civil rights movement. They had no idea what they were doing, yet we revere them as leaders because of their passion and dedication. Education and experience are not prequisites for leadership, in my opinion. Why do you think they are?”

Key words: “. . . especially ones that founded their organizations” The women’s movement grew out of the anti-war movement when women got fed up with all the sexism. They didn’t like what was going on, so they started something new. They did it with little to no money, and the scorn of much of the nation, including plenty of men on the Left. They held consciousness raising groups in living rooms. They used whatever crappy old office equipment they could get together. They made headlines by doing banner drops and photo ops at Miss America. They experimented with new leadership styles. They tried many things, often failing. But they pressed on and now we younger women (I include my 42 year old self here) can’t imagine life without they changes they brought.

Before that, when students didn’t like what SCLC was doing, they challenged them via SNCC, resulting in a changed civil rights movement and sometimes a really difficult relationship between the two groups. And everyone in that movement worked incredibly hard, mostly doing grunt work we’ll never hear about, and many of them putting their lives on the line each day. For every high profile Rosa Parks moment or Dr. King speech, thousands of people got signs printed, ran flier copies on old ink belt copiers, knocked on doors, put up chairs for meetings, wrote minutes, called friends, sat through meetings and trainings, and walked for miles instead of taking buses. Those people were the movement.

Activist leadership and established organizational leadership are not the same thing. No one asks for you to have experience or a certain degree when you’re an organizer. You just go out and do it. It’s some of the most important work for social change — always has been. You do, however, need to have experience and skills to run an organization with a $5 million budget. If anything, we already have too many passionate activists mismanaging nonprofits because they are so ill-equipped to handle the business side of things.

From what I read here, it’s not that Gen Y is being asked to do more, it’s that some Gen Yers want to do less. Why should someone who’s 25 waltz into a position of responsibility without having learned the nuts and bolts of the organization? Why should a young person get to make decisions about things they’ve either not experienced or not had much experience with? Being passionate is great, but passion and skill are two entirely different things.

I do think, to be clear, that there are terrific young leaders out there, and I’m happy to work with them. I think a blog or a group for young nonprofit leaders or activists is great. Just like I’m working on creating better networking for mid-career women like myself, because we have our own needs. But I’ve had some negative experiences with entitled young adults. That drives me batty.

This discussion inspired me to write a longer post on my blog. Hope folks take a look and weigh in. Thanks