Let me start in true David Williams style.

I am 20 and I like to volunteer and you are a NFP that needs me. Perhaps you have many ideas about how to connect with me and, I will be honest, most of them will fail. Why?  Because, even if some of your strategies are well-planned and hold some promise, they all have something in common – you have based them on the fundamentally wrong profile of my peers and me. So, I will first tell you what I don’t like and then you can again try recruiting us.

To start with, I don’t like to be considered as another sheep of the great herd known as Gen Y. If you think that we are all the same, and the same thing will move and motivate us, you are wrong.  No two people in my generation are alike. However, approaching me as though that I am the rebel, the one who tries to stand out by being different and who always opposes everyone and everything is likely to get you just as far – nowhere.

The truth is, I am just like you, just 15-20 years younger. Can you remember who you were at twenty? Well, I am not that different from you at that time. I am in the period of my life when I like to think I am old enough to be responsible and reliable. So I don’t like it when you treat me like a kid and always try to mentor me. Actually, I hate it. I prefer to be on my own, to prove that I can do whatever is required from me and to be as successful as any other volunteer, no matter whether their generation is X or Y.

Let me share a memory with you. When I was a teenager, there was a teen show on TV – “Chill out”. I hated “Chill Out”. I was quite frustrated by those guys and girls there, taken from somewhere, made to learn their scenario by heart and looking so false and artificial. They tried to play it cool. They had piercings and tattoos, their trousers were so low I could see their underwear (Gross!) and they spoke some slang presumably preferred by teenagers. So here’s a tip from me, your prospective young volunteers don’t go for that!

I was born in 1994 and I have neither a tattoo nor a piercing. I don’t smoke and I drink so rarely I can say I don’t drink at all. I don’t listen to Slayer and Marilyn Manson (I had to actually Google his name to make sure I have spelled it right) and I don’t like partying too much. i h8 ppl who tlk lyk dis (I hate people who talk like this.) And I don’t give a monkey’s uncle for the size of the engine of the car I would drive one day.

So now let me tell you how you can make me one of your volunteers. Engage with me the way you would engage with an adult. Talk to me on the phone or send me an email instead of assuming I would prefer to chat with you on Facebook. Don’t try to attract my attention in some of the mainstream ways described above. It may work with some of those SWAG and YOLO teens, but not me. I like finding things on my own and it will be great if you could provide some information that will show me the benefits of me volunteering for you and the difference I can make in the world.

Have in mind that once I am with you, I would like it if you trust me and let me prove that I can deal with my tasks. If I need help, I will ask for it. If I can’t do something, I will tell you to give it to someone else. And if I have some new ideas, I will appreciate it if you hear me and give them a go. So next time you find yourself in need of some new young volunteers (or you have them and wonder how to keep them), remember what I told you and I think this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.