Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce's HYPE on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 209
The Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce's HYPE program creates a community for young professionals through social events, professional development, and nonprofit engagement. Rebranded five years ago, HYPE (Helping Young Professionals Emerge) focuses on building connections and making Manhattan a place where 18-40 year olds want to live, work, and play.
• Program operates through five pillars: play, engage, develop, connect, and Love MHK
• Monthly "HYPE Happy Hour" on the last Thursday and "Lattes with Leadership" provide regular connection opportunities
• Robust mentorship program pairs members with established business leaders for one-on-one development
• Collaborates with GMCF Young Trustees on nonprofit engagement, including annual Nonprofit Happy Hour
• Membership costs $50 annually, with special rates available for students and certain career fields
• Approximately 300 members across Gary, Riley, and Pottawatomie counties
• Creates belonging that helps retain talent in the Manhattan area
• Next HYPE orientation scheduled for July 8th at the Manhattan Public Library
For more information, visit hypemhk.com or email amove@manhattan.org
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour, as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. We are back with the GMCF Community Hour here on NewsRadio KMAN and our next segment is about a program that is based through the Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce, about a program that is based through the Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce, and we'd like to share a lot of efforts with what happens with the chamber here on the GMCF Community Hour. We have two guests here to talk about it. She is the Talent Strategies Manager. That's a great title.
Speaker 2:Allison Thank you?
Speaker 1:How are you today?
Speaker 2:I'm great. How are you? You're wearing purple, I am wearing purple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't even have the purple mic. That's Kay Terrell's job over here on the other side. Good morning, kay. Good morning, glad to have you aboard.
Speaker 3:Thank you, glad to be here, yeah.
Speaker 1:Kay, let's talk a little bit about this, because you're the chair of Hype for this year. Is it a one-year term? It's a two-year term, two years. The chair of our steering committee. Okay, and this is really just a fun group, isn't it?
Speaker 3:It is an incredibly enjoyable group, a lot of really fun people to work with. Allison leads us from the chamber standpoint and all we do is plan ways to engage with our young professionals and enjoy each other's company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Allison. How did Hype get started? Allison, how did Hype get started?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Hype has actually been around for quite a while. There was a kind of informal young professionals group that we had that had several members, and then when Jason Smith came to the chamber about five years ago, we rebranded and we became Hype, helping young professionals emerge, and so that's when the group really started growing and started developing with distinct pillars, and so that is when it really started and really started to grow. So I would contribute it to that.
Speaker 1:What's the purpose of HYPE?
Speaker 2:The purpose is to help young professionals in our community connect with other young professionals and make Manhattan a great place for them to live, work and play here.
Speaker 1:Is it largely a social organization? Would you consider it that?
Speaker 2:I would consider the social component a big part of Hype. I think it's a good first step for people to get engaged and get connected with other members. But there are other elements that we have that fold into Hype. So we do a lot of professional development through hype. There's opportunities for you to develop yourself through one of our pillars. We deal with the philanthropic side, getting to know our nonprofits here in the community. We have places where you can recruit other hype members. So it just depends on what your interests are. There's really a place for everybody within the group.
Speaker 1:I know there's a lot of crossover between the foundation's young trustees, and so this is really kind of a neat collaboration. I don't know how much collaborating you actually do, but it does give everybody that participates, I think, a really good sense of being community-minded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Gmcf has been a fantastic founding investor of ours since really the start of hype, and it gives our members that are interested in engaging with the nonprofits an opportunity to dive a little bit deeper and get to know those more through the young trustees, and so we've developed quite a few events to be collaborative. One of our biggest ones right now is the nonprofit happy hour which we've put on. This is our second year in a row and we've had at least 30 nonprofits show up, and really the point of that is for a nonprofit to showcase some of the unique opportunities they have, whether that's board member positions or volunteering opportunities or just ways that they can raise awareness for some of their causes and that young professionals can get engaged. So we can bridge that gap between the two.
Speaker 1:You know I'm way too old to be a member of HYPE. I don't know. You do have some age parameters, correct?
Speaker 2:We are usually between the ages of 18 and 40.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm way outside of that scope, but I did crash the nonprofit party.
Speaker 2:But we, as we mentioned, we don't card.
Speaker 1:It's one of those things. It's been a long time since I've been carded. I actually would appreciate it.
Speaker 2:We really welcome anybody that's willing to engage with a young professional or pour into a young professional. So we say 18 to about 40 in the areas of Gary, Riley and Pottawatomie counties. Anybody that wants to live, work or play here in Manhattan, it's open to you.
Speaker 1:Kale, when you approach someone who's maybe new to town or not familiar with Hyper, you'd like to see them get involved. That's between that 18 and 40 year range. What's your sales pitch to them to get them?
Speaker 3:active, stayed and left town and come back. I think any way that you can create a sense of belonging and a place of meaning where you live, work and play, I think our chances of retaining that talent and keeping them here in our area grows substantially. I was one of those young professionals that moved to Manhattan in 2021. I knew some folks, but I really didn't have a deep connection to Manhattan when I first arrived, and so I got involved with Hype and it was one of the best decisions that I've ever made. I had a chance to meet other motivated and engaged young professionals that want to make our home a better place and to create a sense of belonging again, and I would just encourage them to come and have a conversation and see what our program is all about and that usually, if we can get them to join us for one event or another, most oftentimes we have a member that is committed. How frequently do you meet? So we have some recurring programming.
Speaker 3:Allison mentioned that we certainly are a social club of sorts. Every month, we have Hype Happy Hour, which is the last Thursday of the month, and that is obviously a very popular event for our young professionals. We get to socially engage. There's no formal programming or any other schedule per se other than a chance to have a cocktail or other beverage with our young professionals and relax after work. We've also grown tremendously with our Lattes, with Leadership event and that is generally hosted at Brothers Coffee and we have leaders from around the community with various topics that come in at eight o'clock and share a message or some other community event or important message that's taking place. So those two events have been somewhat of our structured month-to-month programming and we've made a real effort, I would say over the last two years to build in some of our other areas of professional development and other community impact initiatives that we can educate and bring our members into. That are a little more sporadic in programming.
Speaker 1:Allison, you just referred to professional development. What are some of those activities that you're involved in with HYPE?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. The first one is we've restructured our group launch, which used to be a reoccurring program and now we're doing it quarterly, but it focuses on some of the topics that come from our chamber strategic plan so that young professionals can deep dive into that. So we just had our first one on housing and what it means for young professionals to be invested in the housing conversations here in Manhattan, and the next one, on June 3rd, will be focused on child care and what child care is doing for our community, especially with the new child care accelerator that's coming, and so I think it's important for young professionals to be involved in that conversation. We also offer a really robust mentorship program through Hype, and so as a member, as a membership benefit, you get to be paired with an established business leader here in our community and grow with them one-on-one, and I think that that's really beneficial because they've got a lot of knowledge that they can share with you, and sometimes you don't always get that out of a happy hour.
Speaker 2:And then we've also tried to fold in some of our larger chamber initiatives. So we had a track at the first ever MHK Professional Development Day and it was specifically geared towards young professionals, and I think that that's really important because after you know you grow out of hype, you're going to need to still continue to be engaged, and so meeting other professionals in our community is really important. So having that track and getting to socialize at that event I think is really important. And then, lastly, we try to support the Kansas YP Summit. So not only are we meeting young professionals in our community, but we're going outside of our community to meet other Kansas young professionals, um where they are, and get to know them a little bit more, because, um, they will maybe one day move to Manhattan, kansas, and it's important that um we know them and, um, as Kayle mentioned, if the more young professionals we have, the better our community is going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if um a young person, cale, wants to get involved, you approach them. Like I said, you know you've got your little elevator speech that you do and you invite them to events. Is there a formal process? And other than being within the age of 18 to 40, what is that like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we would encourage and invite any of our young professionals if they're interested in learning more about hype, coming up on July 8th. We have our annual hype orientation event scheduled where we can get a little bit more personalized with someone who is new to town, new to the hype program, wants to understand a little bit more of how we engage with our membership. So that's perfectly timed coming up on July 8th for them to join us at the Manhattan Public Library More details will be coming from there, but we have, you know, approximately 300 members in. Our program is open to all businesses, all young professionals, like Allison said, generally ages 18 to 40. We welcome anyone to contribute to our program in that manner.
Speaker 3:There are other ways to get involved with our pillars. Allison mentioned that we generally achieve our mission through five pillars and those are focused on the areas of play, engage, develop, connect and our Love MHK pillar, which exposes our group to a little bit more of our philanthropic side in Manhattan. And so if you, you know, are wanting to be more engaged with our programming and have a little bit more impact in our program, there are endless ways to get involved with those committees or even share one of those committees all the way up to our steering committee. Is there a membership fee? There is a membership fee and we've had a lot of discussion on how best to meet our young professionals where they are.
Speaker 3:A good bulk of our groups are provided membership by their organizations and I think that speaks to the level of commitment from the business community in Manhattan and specifically the efforts from the chamber in supporting our local organizations and the positives that we can achieve through that. Our annual membership is $50 for young professionals. We do have some incentive programs for students or other particular career fields if you are involved in those areas. We've been working very diligently to improve our relationship with Fort Riley, with the university, with some of our other very impactful and important entities in our in our area, and finding the best way that we can meet those individuals where they are and make sure that we are providing them a space to get connected, and so that's certainly been an ongoing conversation, you know, within our group as well.
Speaker 1:Allison. I'm certain that we just kind of scratched the surface of everything associated with hype, but what are some other things, maybe, that you'd like to add before we move on to our next segment?
Speaker 2:Yes, cale mentioned, we do have a website so you can visit us at hypemhkcom or you can just contact me directly it's a move at manhattanorg.
Speaker 2:Just email me, we'll get you connected and get you somebody to go to an event with.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, when you go to events a little bit intimidating, a little bit scary, we have young professionals that are willing to to go beside you and make you feel welcome in our community. But one thing I want to mention is that our just members are innovative, bring new ideas and strategies to town, and we just want to make them feel comfortable and engaged within our community, because they're really going to be the next generation of Manhattan's leadership. So we really try to do a good job of bridging the gap there. But I do think that sometimes with young professionals, things feel daunting or things feel scary, and I think that this group really does a good job of just. If you ask the right questions and you meet the right people, it's going to be really comfortable for you to stay here, especially if you're a student or you're military or staying here. It's really an inviting community and I think that even our partnership with the Young Trustees and GMCF really does a good job of helping you find your area of expertise, where you want to stay, and helping you get involved.
Speaker 1:So yeah, OK, terrell, thanks for your efforts on this and spreading the good word. So thank you. I'm sure it's going to make, it's going to mean a lot to you down the road. Probably does now, doesn't?
Speaker 3:it. It does. Like I said, I was a new young professional to our community, um, and, and the hype program offered me a space to meet people and get connected, um, and I'll forever be thankful for that. And, uh, manhattan is certainly home, um, and they're a big reason for that, allison, thank you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, I think it's a great opportunity, a great program and very much like Kale, I moved to the area and it's really been a great place to get to know people, so I welcome anybody that's wanting that opportunity.
Speaker 1:Our next segment features Mary Ice. We're going to be speaking about the Symphony in the Flint Hills coming up here in just a couple of moments. This is the GMCF Community Hour. We do this every Monday morning at 10 on NewsRadio KMAN.