How Young Life is Actively Connecting with 100k Grads in the US:
Consider these two possible scenarios…
Scenario “A” - You show up to college with your parents to move into your dorm after 4 years of High School Young Life involvement (Some of you remember that day, right?). You open the car and you and your parents begin the long, arduous process of lugging all of your belongings to your room. Then, after some time of unpacking and looking around, you exchange tear-filled goodbyes and your parents leave. You are all alone, navigating uncharted waters; you wonder, “How can l make connections and find any upcoming campus activities?”
Scenario “B” - You show up to college with your parents to move into your dorm after four years of High School Young Life involvement (Some of you remember that day, right?). You open the car door to exit, and…three energetic Young Life College leaders greet you by “semi-surprise,” hand you some snacks, say hi to your folks, help move you into your dorm room, tell you about the picnic happening tomorrow and give you a flyer about the five other events happening that week!
Now, which one is the better start? Which one leads to possible introductions to other people and ongoing connection to Young Life? (Duh!)
Friends for Life
While Young Life’s mission is about introducing kids to Jesus (evangelism) – it is also about helping them grow in their faith, and staying with them for the long haul; being “Friends for Life.”(discipleship). Every year, tens of thousands of graduating seniors, who have been involved with Young Life in High School, if not longer, graduate and head off to college, the military or the workplace. Statistics show that approximately 70% of kids stop attending church when they go to college. Connecting the dots, Young Life has long-recognized the need to connect graduating High School seniors with Young Life College staff and leaders where they are attending.
For the past 15 years, great effort has been put into the very difficult objective of collecting information from High School seniors on where they are headed next (College, the military, work, etc.) to pass on to relevant Young Life representatives. To make a long story short, the effort has involved multiple manual and disconnected collection systems. Furthermore, it has been tedious, difficult and has involved too many people in the chain between volunteer leaders and the Service Center. For all these reasons, while much has been achieved, the process has been less effective than it can be. At our best, the effort was gathering actionable info on just 25% of graduating seniors. Which means that some 75% were just walking “out the Door” (“It’s a Sin to Door a Kid” – get it now?)
Revitalizing a Meaningful Effort
A few years ago, for the too-many-eth time, Josh Martinelli (YL College leader, US Naval Academy) ran into a 2/C Midshipman (Junior) who said “I didn’t even know there was Young Life College here! I was on work crew at Windy Gap. If I had known I would have plugged in two years ago!”
…simultaneously, Ken Tankersley and Jonathan Schultz of the office of the Young Life Community Network had recognized the same issue and hypothesized that maybe using the relatively new technology of a web-based form and QR Code might help leaders collect relevant information more effectively? This initial technological solution was launched in the spring of 2023; however, the results proved to be less than overwhelming, with less than 3,000 graduates filling out the form.
In the spring of 2024, those two paths collided and resulted in a pilot project to determine if there was a better way forward. What if High School Young Life Clubs held a senior night each spring, as a regular club event and creatively invited, honored and involved every senior who had ever been connected (in fact, some clubs already do this)? What if, at the end of Senior Night Club, a pizza party was held for seniors only, during which someone explained to them how cool and great YL College is (best practice idea: Have a prior-year senior, currently in YLC as a freshman, share.) What if the “Let’s Stay Connected” form QR Code was then put up on a screen up front and, in less than two minutes, seniors simply entered their name, cell, email and destination into this YLConnect-integrated form?
A Successful Pilot, An Opportunity for Impact
This in fact was the pilot we ran with four Areas in Seattle, Phoenix, Memphis and Virginia Beach in May and June 2024. The results? Those four areas which got 14 names entered into the database in 2023 got 154 names entered in 2024. The best part? The kids did all the work! (i.e. Leaders and AD’s had to do next-to-nothing.) On average the entry took less than 60 seconds and 95%+ of kids present gladly shared their info.
There is momentum to make this approach an annual Young Life Club event. Would you consider making this a best practice in your high school ministries? If we all stack hands on this, at least 50% (or more?) of our graduating High School seniors heading to college – not 25% - can have three excited Young Life College leaders greet them as they arrive at their dorm! It is not difficult to envision the impact this could have on these graduates, Young Life College and the Kingdom of God.
By Dave Wilkins