Hi there,

We hope this message finds you safe and healthy. We’ve been working hard at Minnesota Youth Collective to meet the needs of our community over the last five months and live our values. To that end, we wanted to share an exciting update with you.

We are shifting to a new leadership model—our co-founders are now Co-Executive Directors! Rahhel Haile is our new Executive Director of Program and Policy. Emily Wellen has shifted to Executive Director of Resource Development.

This is a structural change that should have happened earlier than it did. Rahhel built the programming MNYC is known for, as well as the incredible team that makes it happen, making her more than qualified for this role. We founded MNYC to serve as a political home for young people—particularly those who don’t see themselves traditionally represented in leadership positions. Our dream was to make an organization that was radically different from those we had been a part of in the past. We imagined this beautiful, intersectional space where people most at the margins felt safe, supported, and valued. We have changed significantly since our founding almost three years ago, and are so proud of how far we’ve come—but we know that we must do our work with an eye on justice, particularly in our own organization. We had a pay and power inequity at the top of our organization, and this is our first step to fix it. This inequity, one that exists in many organizations, is the result of our society’s fixation on ownership—ownership of ideas, wealth, power, and people.

In this critical moment, it’s imperative that leaders and organizations take a good hard look at leadership structures through a radical and equitable lens, and ensure that the inequities aren’t starting within their own staff. In order to be who we set out to be, we must hold ourselves to the same standards we hold others. None of us can fight systemic oppression and racism while we perpetuate it through institutions. We hope by being honest about our evolution, and the reasons behind it, we will inspire other organizations to consider ways they aren’t doing right by their base, staff, and community. We hope those with class privilege will realize that organizations need a lot of money to run if we’re going to live our values— like offering health care, mental health services, professional development, and a living wage. We all need to invest in the people who are doing the work, who are challenging narratives, and who make us feel uncomfortable in our abundance of power. 

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to get involved, to volunteer your time, to donate, to make a powerful change in your life or organization—here it is. This is it. There’s nothing left to wait for.

Emily, Rahhel, and the MNYC team 

If you want to support our work by providing financial resources, please click here.

If you want to support our work by volunteering your time, please click here.

If you have any ideas, questions, comments, or feedback, please share them with hey@mnyouthcollective.org.