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

This week, we asked 2019 YPN VP candidates Ryan Jockers and Katie Nehl about how the YPN has impacted them and how it can provide further value to members in the future. Let’s here what they have to say!

Don’t forget to save the date to attend our May 8 Cinco Anniversary Celebration at which we’ll hold the VP election and announce its results!

Ryan Jockers

Where Are You From: Tacoma, WA

Place Of Employment: North Dakota University System
Job Title: Strategic Analytics Coordinator
How Long You’ve Been In The YPN: Since March 2018
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How has being in the YP Network impacted you personally and professionally?
Personally, the YP Network has provided invaluable opportunities to develop genuine friendships. Regardless of professional backgrounds, YP has been a welcoming place to learn more about people in the Bismarck-Mandan community. It was a blast to take my family to Papa’s Pumpkin Patch last year to volunteer, and my kids want to do it again this year. Professionally, it has been beneficial to connect with others that work in different sectors and industries. More specifically, I work in the public sector, and without YP I wouldn’t be able to interact with others in the private sector as much or learn different perspectives in the community. The YP mentorship program is a great example of this, I highly recommend it to all members. Overall, the YP Network has given me the opportunity to learn more about the community, and have fun while doing it.

How can the YP progress to add more value to its members?
A network is made of connections, and the more connections that exist determine the size of that network. One way to add value to a network is to increase connections, by adding more perspectives and experiences, the entire network benefits. Current and former members of the YP Network have spent countless hours building incredible connections to the community, and have provided a solid base, setting up for future success. Yet, there is always room for growth and improvement. As I mentioned before, there are 30,000 people in the Bismarck–Mandan community between the ages of 20 and 39. How many of the 30,000 don’t know about YP? How many would benefit from the YP network who don’t already? I truly believe that every single member, or potential member, has something to offer to the YP Network, no matter how large or small it may seem. One of my goals would be to drive initiatives that communicate that message, no matter your background, title, sector, position, there is a place for you at YP to contribute and add value.

Katie Nehl

Where Are You From: Richardton, ND

Place Of Employment: First Community Credit Union
Job Title: Communications Manager

How has being in the YP Network impacted you personally and professionally?
The YP Network has impacted me in ways I never thought possible. When I moved to Bismarck three years ago, I literally knew no one and had no friends here. I worked in an office at the time where all my coworkers were twice my age, so social time or networking options were limited. Joining YPN was crucial in helping me get acquainted with the cities of Bismarck and Mandan and more importantly, getting involved. YPN has allowed me to not just gain friends, but valuable business connections within our community. Whether my need is charitable, financial related, marketing based and so on, it’s amazing that I’m able to call on someone from another business when I need help, all because of the connections I’ve made through YPN. This is a huge positive impact in my professional career.
Being a co-lead for the PR/Marketing team has given me the opportunity to be part of Wisdom Team lunch meetings which have been invaluable. Wisdom Team lunch meetings are where the YPN leadership teams are able to sit down with community and business leaders to learn from them on a quarterly basis. I leave these luncheons with numerous take-aways that without a doubt have helped me grow both personally and professionally.

Additionally, YPN has helped strengthen in my leadership skills, serving as a Co-lead and helping with numerous large YPN events. I have served as the PR co-chair for Epic Impact for the past couple years and have greatly enjoyed promoting this event to our members and sponsors. Plus, it has given me the opportunity to meet our speakers, such as Karl Mecklenberg. It isn’t every day that you get to have lunch with a guy who played in 3 Super Bowls!

Being a co-lead is never short of its challenges. However, from this I’ve also learned a great deal of patience, understanding, trustworthiness and to lean on those around you, time management, how to roll with the punches and that laughter can be the best medicine.

Finally, YPN has helped me grow in my servant leadership, being given the opportunity to volunteer at countless community service and professional development events. Our Service and Professional Development Teams do a fantastic job of providing YPN members with endless opportunities to give back to our community. From donating blood, to helping paint at the Railroad museum, serve meals at Heaven’s Helpers and speak for the Step-Up program at numerous high schools over the past several years, I’ve loved giving back when able. This has impacted me personally on so many different levels. Getting out in our community to give back, constantly reminds me how grateful I am of the many blessing I’ve been given. Somedays life gets hard, we may get down on ourselves at work or stress over little things; these service opportunities are a great way to view life in a different lens and remind us of what’s truly important.

I’m so grateful for the bonds I’ve formed and the business networking opportunities I’ve been given, because of YPN. The YP Network has opened countless doors and opportunities for me in growth, leadership, friendship, education and community involvement, each and every day. I’ll always be grateful I took a leap of faith by attending that new member breakfast in May of 2016 and joining the YPN.

How can the YP progress to add more value to its members?
The biggest thing YPN can do is to not just add more value, but to show the value. We need to tell our story more and advertise what we really do to a great extent. I have the PR and communications experience professionally and as the YPN PR/Marketing Co-Lead and if elected, I want to take our story telling to a new level, as that’s what can help grow our network. I think starting a PR/Marketing campaign around YPN could be huge. This would require involvement from numerous YPN members, but could provide incredible value for all. We need to tell our stories to our Partners, new businesses and community leaders. This might be breaking down the value and cost of each event to really show the numbers of what things cost. YPN offers an unbelievable amount of education, professional, personal and community opportunities at the low cost of $35. It’s a no brainer to join! We just need to really show those hard numbers and facts more.

Also, getting in front of more business leaders is a great way to be able to present those numbers and talk through the value to those individuals. Showing the value is a great way to get more people in support and on board with YPN, which in turn provides great PR value and overall value to the network when it’s more well known.

Also, collaboration is a huge way to add more value. Our professional development team did this earlier this year, having a “Failing Successfully” event. This event encompassed several different team goals, featured several community leaders and was an incredible event. We need more collaborative events that show value to a wider audience.

Finally, I think we need to continue our community outreach, doing more with volunteer events, service projects, schools, etc. These are value added opportunities that many young professionals long for.

Denzel Washington says it best, “At the end of the day it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished… it’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.”