Working with Community Leaders

By:  Allison Kreifels, National Consultant Team

Many times, community leaders are the forgotten component of the stakeholders of our organization and classroom.  However, when thinking about the needs of our chapters, community members can be a valuable asset for both ideas and finances.  Many times our community and business leaders will be willing to help the school but are unsure of how to do so.  Here are a few ideas on how to connect with and approach community members.

• Know what you want.  If you have an end goal in mind, it will be more clear to community leaders how they can help.  It also makes your chapter look more organized and responsible.
• Make it applicable.  After you know what you want, connect those needs to specific community leaders.  By making it applicable to a specific group they would be more willing to assist.  For example, if you have a student completing an Entrepreneurship STAR Event, connect them with your local Chamber of Commerce.  Since the entire purpose of a Chamber of Commerce is to support local business and community growth, assisting a youth with business development skills only makes sense for them.
• Invite them to be on your Advisory Board.  Rather than just asking every time you need money, get community members involved with sharing ideas.  If the leaders of your community can contribute ideas to your chapter and department you can have a better, more complete, picture of what you and your students need.  And, you never know what resources they may have as well.  For example, banks get rid of old computers relatively often.  For the price of a new hard drive or memory chip, you can get a gently used system for a fraction of the cost.