Youth of the Year events

The signature programme culminates in an event where young people speak publicly about themselves, their families and what the Club has meant. It is the most powerful thing the organization does and the most easily damaged.

What the evening is for

It is recognition of the candidates and a platform for them. It is not a fundraising vehicle with a speech attached, and a room that experiences it as the latter will remember that it did.

• The candidates speak first, in full, unhurried, with the room's attention
• One short auction announcement, made by an organizer, outside the programme
• No bidding activity, table visits or announcements while a young person is speaking
• No leaderboard, no naming of bidders during the evening
• The candidates are guests of honour, not part of the fundraising programme

The speeches are theirs, not the campaign's

A candidate's speech is frequently the most affecting content the Club will ever have. It is also a young person describing their own circumstances, in public, having been encouraged to do so by an organization they depend on.

• Do not record, publish or reuse a speech without the young person's and their guardian's specific, separate consent for that use
• Consent to speak at the event is not consent for a public indexed page
• Ask afterwards, not before — a candidate agreeing in advance is agreeing under pressure they may not name
• Make declining invisible and consequence-free, including for the programme
• Never quote a speech in an auction item description or a solicitation

Where consent is given, honour the exact scope. A clip approved for a local news segment is not approved for a fundraising page that will still be there in a decade.

The format that works

Online, opening two weeks before, closing after the programme. Most bidding happens away from the room, guests who cannot attend still take part, and the evening stays what it is meant to be.

Where a display is used, put it in a reception area rather than the main room, and close it before the speeches begin rather than during them.

One lot that belongs here

Something that funds the programme the candidates came through — a member-year, a leadership programme place, a college readiness cycle. Named from the podium as what the room is funding for next year's candidates, it makes the auction part of the evening's logic rather than an interruption of it.

Afterwards

Thank the candidates for attending rather than for participating in a fundraiser, and report the total to them and their families in the unit that matters — how many member-years the room funded.

And tell them the money is not conditional on anything they said. It should not need saying and a teenager who spoke about their family in front of two hundred adults may be wondering.

General information, not legal advice for your Club. Affiliate obligations, brand standards and youth protection requirements come from your national organization and your own policies — your executive director and national contact decide how any of this applies.