Leveraging F.U.N.DAMISM through Seasons of Change

The YP Network 7th Annual Epic Impact is scheduled for January 26, 2021 and will feature Paul J. Long.

Paul Long is a motivational speaker and consultant that has challenged the corporate landscape for over a decade, while engaging audiences around the globe. As the MLB Kansas City Royals’ 2016 Fan of the Year, Paul’s shenanigans have been featured in media outlets like ESPN, the Washington Post, and even the Wall Street Journal.

Through his concept of “Fundamism,” infectious spirit and unique take on F.U.N. in the workplace, Paul has provided memorable experiences at hundreds of events while championing pediatric cancer research. Paul’s keynote experience is sure to bring laughter, tears, and provoke thought.

Join us for this 7th Annual Event. RSVP here.

The Bismarck-Mandan Young Professionals Network (YPN) is pleased to announce that it will be partnering with TR4 Heart & Soul for one year, from November 2020 through October 2021.

The partnership, which comes about as part of the YPN strategic plan, will allow TR4 Heart & Soul the opportunity to connect with young professionals from around Bismarck-Mandan while providing YPN members with service opportunities throughout the year. The YPN will direct all fundraising and most volunteer efforts for the next year toward the organization.

TR4 Heart & Soul’s mission seeks to improve the quality of life for individuals with disabilities through the heart and soul of a horse. They offer programs of therapeutic riding for individuals of all ages, along with a Books in the Barn program.

YPN will kick-off it’s support for TR4 Heart & Soul by volunteering at the Halloween & Hot Dogs with the Horses event on Friday, October 30th from 4:00-7:00pm. We are looking for 12 volunteers for this evening event, with one or two volunteers to arrive at 3:30pm for training. If you are interested in volunteering, please email service@ypnetwork.org. 

The Bismarck-Mandan Young Professionals Network accepted applications from network members in August and selected three non-profit finalists. Each of the three finalist organizations had the chance to give a short presentation to the YPN Leadership Team in early October and YPN leadership ultimately selected TR 4 Heart & Soul.

“We are so excited to have this partnership with the Bismarck-Mandan Young Professionals Network,” said Katie Oakland, TR 4 Heart & Soul Founder.

The YPN would like to thank all the members who nominated non-profit organizations. To learn more about TR4 Heart & Soul, visit www.therapeuticriding4has.org.

From: Katie Schiltz, President; Katie Nehl, Vice President; Jillian Lagasse, Chairperson; and Melinda Weninger, Secretary/Treasurer

September 13, 2019

Since our inception in 2005, the Bismarck Mandan Young Professionals Network (YPN) has concentrated on one mission: Career Minded. Community Focused. We have grown from a handful of young professionals to an incredible amount of 250+ members across all industries and backgrounds. While we remain dedicated to the roots we were built on, our demographic has changed over the years.

As we’ve grown, we’ve added teams, programs, partnerships, and most certainly, we’ve added events. In 2018, we held 60 YPN team meetings and 63 YPN events. That equals 123 events, which breaks down to a YPN event every 3 days. As an all-volunteer group, that number is unrealistic and unfeasible to maintain long-term. We also noted our attendance dropping at events that were closely scheduled to other YPN events, a reflection of the fact that young professionals today are busy with work, families, and other events outside of YPN.

At our last YPN strategic planning session in 2018, it became loud and clear that we needed to narrow our focus and really provide programming that reflects quality over quantity. To read directly (in part) from our 2018-2020 strategic plan:

• Our goal is to synthesize team roles and responsibilities to three buckets (professional development, service, social) to reflect greatest needed and requests of members.
• We will build our capacity to provide higher quality, more-focused events and programming

Our bi-annual membership survey tells us that members join the YP Network for service opportunities, professional development, and social events/networking. For these reasons, we are excited to be moving forward with a plan to focus on these three areas.

How did we get here? Over the years, we have been leading up to this, with many co-leads finding their two-year terms as too much of a time commitment. We have also received feedback directly from members, the Chamber EDC, and our YP Wisdom Team, a group of highly successful business leaders in the community, that we can improve our focused effort as a network.

Our initial plan is to:

1. Facilitate a transition plan from now through May 2020, when our Annual Cinco Meeting takes place.
2. Restructure “teams” in order to be one united network front providing vast opportunities for all young professionals. Eliminating mandatory monthly team meetings will allow members to more freely enjoy other events YPN offers.
   • Our Leadership Board will include three main committees, rather than six separate teams. Six people will lead these committees with different areas of interest: two social, two service, and two professional development.
   • We will continue with our Wisdom Team as-is.
3. Research adding a 3-year-term marketing specialist to the Executive Team (while still keeping President, Vice President, Chairperson, Secretary/Treasurer).
4. Downsize on number of events, and set a structured plan going forward

In downsizing the number of YPN events we hold each year, our plan is to hold 35-52 events the entire calendar year; this equals 2-4 events per month, and 1 or less event per week. The types of events will give members enough quality and variety of events each month to choose from, focusing on professional development, service opportunities, and networking.

Many details are still being ironed out, such as our partner program, which is an extremely important part of the YP Network! At this point, we are tentatively looking at assigning someone to manage the partner liaisons. This could possibly be a separate position, not part of the regular YP Leadership Board.

In closing, we are excited to transition toward a more streamlined YP Network with a more focused effort! We want our events and programming to continually be tailored, positive, high-quality, and overall amazing. We look forward to you joining us on this journey! If you have any questions, our door is always open to chat; please email us at info@ypnetwork.org.

Thank you!

Katie S., Katie N., Jillian and Melinda