The mission of Leadership Next is to engage emerging leaders to create vibrant and caring communities in the Detroit region. The group is doing this by equipping these leaders with the skills, connections and environment conducive to making a positive impact in southeast Michigan. The members of Leadership Next, a United Way for Southeastern Michigan program, believe in walking the talk.

LN took a significant step toward fulfilling its mission March 4, with the announcement of plans to implement financial stability projects to help individuals and families in the area. Educational preparedness, financial stability and basic needs are the three focus areas of United Way's Agenda for Change, the organization's business plan for the next 10 years, and LN has been looking at ways to align its efforts with that work.

United Way’s financial stability goals include increasing financial resources, increasing and sustaining home ownership, increasing financial literacy across the region. Generally, increasing financial stability includes educational activities ranging from skills training to GED prep, money management training that helps residents increase personal savings and access the Earned Income Tax Credit and similar rebates, and programs that promote entrepreneurial opportunities and the importance of home ownership.

The Leadership Next strategy also calls for a series of small projects designed to produce a noticeable impact, but without long-term engagement. The group refers to these as “quick hits,” the next of which will showcase the ease of purchasing a home in the metro Detroit area.

In comparison to other urban areas around the United States, metro Detroit is rife with financial incentives, making the entry into property ownership much more attainable for young professionals. Leadership Next is primarily comprised of emerging leaders between 27 and 37. This demographic is dealing with school loans, career stability and advancement that brings increased financial resources, thus making smart financial decisions a primary concern. Since there is a lot of misinformation surrounding the various aspects related to purchasing a home, future programming along these lines will involve increasing awareness of the tools and resources available to ease a first home purchase, while simultaneously dispelling common myths. Leadership Next is working on a program that would bring professionals from the real estate and mortgage industries together with its membership in a casual environment. By doing so, the group hopes to increase home ownership and financial stability among its members.

Another quick hit designed to help increase home ownership is the Leadership Next Day of Caring, during which membership will volunteer a Saturday’s worth of time to clean up a baseball field, in conjunction with the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation. Leadership Next believes its efforts to clean up certain public access areas in Detroit neighborhoods will increase the appeal of these neighborhoods to young professionals seeking to make their first home purchase. The Day of Caring is scheduled for April 12. For more information, please e-mail LN coordinator Rashida Johnson at leadershipnext@LiveUnitedSEM.org.

Michelle Peters produces a free, bi-weekly e-zine, The Right Direction, and the blog Empowering Solutions, which you can access at www.mpowersolutionsblog.com. To subscribe to her e-zine, send a request to info@acssgroup.net.

If you have questions about Leadership Next or United Way’s financial stability work in the region, please contact Julie Updyke at leadershipnext@LiveUnitedSEM.org.

Young business professionals maintain a pretty hectic pace in order to advance their company’s business objectives while building their credentials. This hectic pace is a common, justifiable barrier to volunteering in the community. To help business professionals rationalize a time commitment to community initiatives, here is a new perspective on the value of volunteering and a tip on how to do it more efficiently.

New Research on Nonprofit Leadership

What if it could be proven to business professionals that leading community initiatives adds value to their business leadership skills? Well, new research suggests just that. A recent report highlighted in Nonprofit Quarterly indicates that nonprofit leaders receive higher ratings than their for-profit counterparts based on feedback from "direct reports, managers and peers." According to the article, a team of leadership and consulting organizations used a 360-degree feedback survey, normed for both nonprofit and for-profit leaders, to assess effective leadership practices. The 360-degree feedback technique is a reliable leadership development tool focused on assessing skills that are relevant to the leader’s role, as they relate to others.

A key finding of this study is that nonprofit leaders demonstrate significantly more effective leadership practices than for-profit leaders. Particularly striking was that the nonprofit leaders showed significantly higher ratings than for-profit leaders in 14 out of 17 leadership dimensions, from all groups providing feedback.

“While it is premature to declare that nonprofit leaders are more effective, the findings call conventional wisdom into question,” the authors say in Nonprofit Quarterly. The proposition that the nonprofit sector is a good place to develop business leadership skills runs contrary to conventional thinking, as has been supported by statements from gurus like Peter Drucker.

Strategic Volunteering

Another tip for busy business professionals is to volunteer strategically. That is, seek to match the natural skills and the work that you enjoy as a business professional to a community initiative. Nonprofit initiatives desperately need higher order, specialized skills such as marketing, public relations and financial management that business professionals apply in daily work. The result will likely be more enjoyment in your volunteer experience, more efficient use of scarce time and unique value added to the community.

Given the opportunities to improve their business leadership skills and while making their involvement more impactful, young business professionals have a lot to offer, and gain, from getting involved in the community. So, don’t delay. Get out there!

Professor Lindman is director of the Center for Nonprofit Management at Lawrence Technological University, a program of the Graduate College of Management, offering graduate education and community outreach programming focused on advancing professional leadership at charitable, nonprofit organizations.

Leadership Next welcomes editorial submissions and other contributions from its members. If you are interested in sharing your talent, please e-mail Julie.Updyke@LiveUnitedSEM.org.

Volunteer Spotlight
ASB '08 is the start of something great
"We didn't give up spring break, we took advantage of it."

The mere mention of spring break causes most of us to conjure up images of lazy days in the sun or wild parties on far-away beaches. But for 60 young volunteers from across the United States and Canada, the break they had this year was something completely different from any they have ever experienced -- thanks to United Way's Alternative Spring Break.

ASB is a two-year-old project that brings together young people interested in spending their spring break completing community service projects, and for the first time Detroit was included among the list of cities hosting volunteers. From Feb. 23 to March 1 ASBers spent their days either working outside in single-digit weather or sweating away on maintenance projects inside, at a number of nonprofit agencies across the region. And while it doesn't sound very glamorous or much like a break, a good time was had by all. In fact, we were hard-pressed to find a single one of them who wouldn't do it all over again.

When asked by friends why he would spend his spring break working outside in the cold, U of M Dearborn student and ASB volunteer Tom Wille didn't hesitate to shoot down the perception that he was missing out on something.

"We didn't give up spring break, we took advantage of it," Wille says.

Since 2006, United Way's ASB program has drawn over 400 volunteers to hurricane-ravaged regions in Mississippi and Louisiana. This year, the ASB volunteers worked on service projects throughout the metropolitan Detroit area. Holding ASB outside of the Gulf Coast region for the first time is a pilot to see whether the "work in your own backyard" approach could work.

And work, it did.

Five teams of volunteers spent the week building a wheelchair ramp for a family in Detroit, clearing grounds for an impending Habitat for Humanity build in Macomb County, refurbishing the boiler room at Vista Maria in Dearborn, working on beautification projects at Lighthouse Path in Pontiac, and painting and tiling rooms at an eastside Detroit community center. On days when it was too cold to work outside, outdoor volunteers spent time inside mentoring youth, serving meals to homeless individuals, painting a gymnasium and even refurbishing a long-forgotten bowling alley at Franklin Wright Settlements. A sixth team, comprised of students from U of M Dearborn's Campus Video Network, spent their spring break documenting the work of the ASB volunteers. The complete collection of videos produced as a result of that work can be viewed at youtube.com/unitedwaysemich.

"We called a local company to see what they would have charged us to paint our gymnasium," said Suneil Singh, director of fund development and communications at Franklin Wright Settlements. "They told us it would take a team of seven painters a week to do it, and it would cost $9,000. The ASB volunteers painted the whole thing in just a few days."

The monetary savings ASB provided nonprofits is only one small benefit the program provides.

"Realizing the impact that I could have in such a short period of time and knowing that a small amount of people could be the catalysts for such great change is the indescribable part," said ASB volunteer Stacy Boone.

ASB and Leadership Next

Rita Fields, director of Workforce Diversity and Compliance at Henry Ford Health System, and Leadership Next member, volunteered to spend an evening with ASB students as a participant on a panel discussion about community involvement and leadership. Fields spoke to the participants about ways to be involved in the community that would provide experience working in a corporate environment.  Students truly enjoyed the opportunity to speak with Fields and to hear her perspective on the vast array of opportunites available to volunteers interested in growing their leadership skills. 

More ASB Volunteer Reflections

"This past week was the best week of my life. I signed up for ASB to help and be part of something that makes a change in our community. I never thought that I would change as dramatically as I did." - Khurram Imam

"This has completely changed my perspective on life and given me so much hope. I can't wait to come back next year and learn even more about myself that I never knew was possible." - Heather Wigley

"I can't wait until we all get together and do it again - making a difference in even more people's lives and changing spirits all over." - Ben Walters

"In the middle of a dusty, dirty, broke-down, sweaty boiler room I took a second to stop sweeping a floor that was buried under rust and chipped paint. While watching my team work flawlessly together I realized that there was absolutely NO other place I would want to spend my spring break. " - Tammy Russell

Upcoming Events
CEOs: Off the Record with John Rakolta Jr., CEO of Walbridge Aldinger

Join Leadership Next in March for the next installment of "CEOs: Off the Record," with John Rakolta Jr., CEO of Walbridge Aldinger.

CEOs: Off the Record provides an opportunity for LN members to have a candid conversation about the issues facing our regional community today, in a relaxed setting. The event will take place on March 31 from 5:30-7 p.m.

Space is limited, so RSVP to leadershipnext@LiveUnitedSEM.org today!

Not yet a member of Leadership Next? Don't worry! Just go to www.uwsem.org/leadershipnext to register. Signing up is easy. You only need to believe in the potential of the region and become a United Way for Southeastern Michigan donor to complete registration.

Kurt's Corner
Increasing union numbers could benefit United Way

United Way for Southeastern Michigan and other United Ways across the country have been partnering with the men and women of organized labor practically since our inception in the 1940s. The contributions of time and money union members provide each year continue to be critical to the success of our work. Just last month, for instance, the International Union UAW committed to recruiting 1,000 volunteers from its ranks to support United Way's newly lauched Operation ABC -- a unique initiative focused on getting every child in the region to read at grade level by third grade. Union members also contribute to ongoing United Way work that takes place across southeast Michigan year 'round.

It is in this context that we recognize the importance of recent news from the U.S. Department of Labor. In January, the department'sBureau of Labor Statistics announced the number of workers represented by a union nationwide rose by 311,000 to 15.7 million in 2007. Michigan ranks fifth among the states with union membership above the national average.

The represented workforce accounted for 12.1 percent of employed wage and salary workers, essentially unchanged from 12 percent in 2006. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent.

Highlights from the 2007 data include:

• Workers in the public sector had a union membership rate nearly five times that of private sector employees
• Education, training and library occupations had the highest unionization rate among all occupations, at 37.2 percent, followed closely by protective service occupations at 35.2 percent.
• Among demographic groups, the union membership rate was highest for black men and lowest for Hispanic women.
• Wage and salary workers age 45 to 54 (15.7 percent) and age 55 to 64 (16.1 percent) were more likely to be union members than were workers age 16 to 24 (4.8 percent).

Membership by Industry and Occupation

The union membership rate for public sector workers was substantially higher (35.9 percent) than for private industry workers (7.5 percent). Within the public sector, local government workers had the highest union membership rate - 41.8 percent. This group includes many workers in several heavily unionized occupations -- teachers, police officers and fire fighters, among others. Private sector industries with high unionization rates include transportation and utilities (22.1 percent), telecommunications (19.7 percent) and construction (13.9 percent). (Table 1)

Among occupational groups tracked in 2007, education, training and library professions (37.2 percent), and protective service professions (35.2 percent) had the highest unionization rates. Farming, fishing and forestry workers (2.7 percent), along with sales and related occupations (3.3 percent) had the lowest unionization rates.

Table 1. Union Affiliation of Employed Wage and Salary Workers by Industry

Demographic Characteristics of Union Members

In 2007, the union membership rate was higher for men (13 percent) than for women (11.1 percent). The gap has narrowed considerably since 1983, when the rate for men was about 10 percentage points higher than the rate for women. The rates for both men and women declined between 1983 and 2007, but the rate for men declined much more rapidly.

Black workers (14.3 percent) were more likely to be union members than were whites (11.8 percent), Asians (10.9 percent) or Hispanics (9.8 percent). Within these major groups, black men had the highest union membership rate (15.8 percent), while Hispanic women had the lowest rate (9.6 percent).

Among age groups, union membership rates were highest among workers 55 to 64 years old (16.1 percent) and 45 to 54 years old (15.7 percent). The lowest union membership rates occurred among the 16 to 24 age group (4.8 percent). Full-time workers were about twice as likely as part-time workers to be union members, 13.2 compared with 6.5 percent.

Earnings

In 2007, among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median weekly earnings of $863 while those who were not represented by unions had median weekly earnings of $663. The difference reflects a variety of influences in addition to coverage by a collective bargaining agreement, including variations in the distributions of union members and non-union employees by occupation, industry, firm size or geographic region.

Union Membership by State

In 2007, 30 states and the District of Columbia had union membership rates below that of the national average, 12.1 percent, while 20 states had higher rates (Table 2). At 19.5 percent, Michigan placed fifth, behind New York, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington state.

The largest numbers of represented workers lived in California (2.5 million) and New York (2.1 million). Nearly half (7.8 million) of the 15.7 million union members in the U.S. lived in six states (California, 2.5 million; New York, 2.1 million; Illinois, .8 million; Michigan, .8 million; Pennsylvania, .7 million; and New Jersey, .7 million) though these states accounted for only about one-third of wage and salary employment nationally.

While Michigan’s total wage and salary employment dropped by 2.6 percent between 2006 and 2007, representing a loss of 106,000 jobs, the number of workers represented by a union dropped only 1.6 percent, from 879,000 to 863,000. This resulted in a slight increase in the share of workers who were represented from 20.4 to 20.6 percent.


Table 2. Union Affiliation of Employed Wage and Salary Workers
Ranked by State

Take Action Now
Video contest will honor outstanding volunteers

Volunteering can involve as little as taking a neighbor to a weekly doctor’s appointment or as much of a commitment as becoming a mentor to a troubled youth. United Way for Southeastern Michigan believes all acts of volunteerism, large and small, should be recognized and we need your help to honor those people and groups who give back through community service.

Now through April 11, United Way is accepting nominations in six award categories. To nominate someone, you must create a video that tells the audience -- in two minutes or less --why the volunteer being nominated should be honored with an award and submit a nomination form. United Way will also be involving the community in the award selection process, allowing individuals to view videos of the top three volunteers in each category and vote for who they believe should win each award.

“We wanted to create an experience that allows the entire community to lift up the volunteers it feels truly make an impact,” said Angela Walker, manager, United Way Volunteer Center. “Allowing everyone to vote on the volunteers they want to honor creates a community-wide celebration of volunteerism.”

You may submit more than one nomination, and the video can be as simple or elaborate as you want as long as it conveys the volunteer’s impact on our community. A panel of United Way staff and volunteers will review the video award entries and select the top three volunteers in each award category. The semi-finalists will then have their videos posted on our Web site and the public will be invited to vote for the winners during National Volunteer Week, April 27-May 3.

Awards will be given in six categories:

Bernie Firestone Award – Recognizes an outstanding rank-and-file member of a local labor union dedicated to community service. A $1,000 donation is given to a nonprofit of the winner’s choice.

Exemplary Group Service Award – Recognizes families, couples or groups who strive to improve the lives of neighbors, friends and their community through volunteer work. A $500 donation will be made to a nonprofit of the winning group’s choice.

Heart of Gold Award – This has become one of the most distinguished volunteer awards in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Winners are a select group of individuals whose efforts, enthusiasm and immeasurable commitment to volunteerism are set apart from all others. Awardees receive a 14-karat gold heart in tribute to their dedication. Two individuals will be recognized with the Heart of Gold award this year.

Outstanding Youth Award – Recognizes a youth, 12-18, who is taking action to make our world a better place to live through volunteering. Nominees in this category show leadership, commitment and character through their service in many different activities or in giving a significant amount of time to one project. In honor of the award, a $250 donation will be made to a nonprofit of the winner’s choice.

Young Adult Award of Excellence – Recognizes an adult, 19-25, who represents the highest standards of service, leadership, commitment and character in their community. A $250 donation will be made to a nonprofit of the winner’s choice.

Outstanding Business Award – Businesses recognized by this award excel in and are committed to community involvement through volunteering. This commitment can be made by all employees, both hourly and salaried, and can take many forms including, but not limited to, corporate volunteer programs. Any small, medium or large company that supports volunteerism is eligible. A $1,000 donation will be made to a nonprofit of the honoree’s choice.

Nomination forms and video submission instructions are available online at www.uwsem.org/volunteer2008. If you don’t have a video camera, consider borrowing one from a friend or relative. Your employer, or perhaps a community organization you belong to also might have a video camera that you could borrow. Public libraries and schools often have video equipment as well. In any case, grab a camera and start filming, because your favorite volunteers deserve to be recognized!