What is the biggest challenge facing the network and what will you do to overcome that?

First, I must start by saying that I think the network has had a very successful 11 years and we couldn’t be where we are at without all our great members! One of the challenges is that every year at this time, our network goes through membership retention issues. As an Ambassador Co-Lead I think it is critical that we continue to engage our team members and encourage our members to get involved. Encourage our members to have a voice! As co-leads, we need to set the example for the network. This includes asking members to plan new events or take a role on serving on a sub committee and really recognize the strengths of all the members to help our network grow. We are a 100% volunteer organization so you have to keep the momentum going at all times! Member retention is not new – organizations around our community have been struggling with this for years.  If elected, Vice President of the YPN, one of the things that I would do is set up meetings with other organization presidents to see what they have been doing to keep their members engaged and share ideas pertaining to membership growth.

As a candidate is there anything else you would like to add?

I would be honored to serve as the next Vice President of the Bismarck Mandan Young Professionals Network. I strongly believe in servant leadership and serving our community! During my day job, we work daily in making sure needs are met in our community and that we have the correct strategies in place to solve them and I see this role being very similar. This network has done outstanding things for our community and the future looks very bright! As I have mentioned, I am the current Ambassador Co-Lead and serve on the YPN Leadership Team so would bring experience to this position as well as new ideas. I feel my strong relationship building skills, work ethic and leadership would make me a strong candidate for this position. I look forward to getting to know more members and to hear your great ideas! Thank you for giving me this opportunity.