Opinion | Dear Students: Please Stop Creating Disingenuous Non-Profits

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Last summer, through a mutual friend, I met a student from a neighbouring school district. One of the things we talked about was how our relative jurisdictions foster an abun- dance of clubs, student-led organizations, and initiatives.

My new acquaintance from Richmond shared that her school administration had introduced the practice of limiting students’ to running a single club. If you were the president of debate club, you could only be that. If you were the secretary of chess club, that was it for your club executive journey. The student said her administra- tion enacted that rule, albeit widely unpopular, to promote equity across school-based initiatives.

At the time, I was incredulous upon hearing that. It seemed so uncalled for and misguided of an administrative action. I even said something to the effect of it being an unreasonable restriction upon free association. But now, through the better part of Grade 12 and having completed and witnessed the post-secondary application process, I have pivoted my stance on the issue, because it, in part, attempted to addressed one of the broader issues within education today.

By the time students reach the upper grades, it’s almost cliche to hear the notion that post-secondary institutions are interested in those who are well-rounded, demonstrating both ac- ademic excellence and extracurricular (“EC”) initiative. The words “personal profile” often end up in some element of that conversation, and an increasingly popular “EC” to build said profile upon is the broad category of “youth organizations” that many of our demographic chose to devote their time to.

There are a number of admirable student organizations out there, both based in and outside of schools. There are a dozen or so that rank highly in my mind. But for every outstanding youth organization, there are probably a decent handful of less admirable and completely disingenuous ones.

In pursuit of the stand-out personal profile, youth organizations have sprung up like morning glory in the uncurated garden that is our student star tup landscape. After observing hundreds of them, I generally find most fall into one of three specific categories:

1. Representatives & Advocates (subcategories “A” and “B”, respectively )

This category is probably the easiest to picture. These are self-described councils, boards, and issue-focussed groups that exist to fur ther youth empowerment or to push for change on a specific social justice problem. Some stage neighbourhood clean-ups, food drives, fundraisers, and other action-oriented events.

2. Networkers

This group is generally more focussed than the previous and usually brings youth together around academic interests or occupational prospects. They host webinars, discussions, and case competitions.

3. Aggregators

Aggregators are fed by the work of the previous two categories, and mainly use digital media to promote other youth organizations. Basically, they create platforms and spaces for other youth organizations to advertise themselves and discourse.

I don’t think this model is perfect, but I do think it captures much of my annoyance with youth organizations, in that many operate insofar as their purposes are vague and sufficiently inflatable to end up as a core component of a personal profile. Simply put, there are a lot of youth organizations that exist only to satisfy a checkbox on a university application.

One of the newer trends in youth organizations is to entrench BC’s Societies Act and its federal counterpart, the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act into the process. Although open- ing up eligibly for grants and funding and establishing personhood for the organization, it isn’t entirely clear why some choose to do this. However, what is clearly achieved by this, is that many have the ability to become “registered non-profits.”

I’ve noticed multiple “registered non-profits” incorporate themselves under those respective statues, and neither of the two obvious benefits were applicable. I suspect incorporation is a medium for the facade of legitimacy for many.

I’ve also found students from local private schools are responsible for a greater proportion of the disingenuous organizations than those of us from the public system.

Much of this is somewhat insig- nificant. It’s reasonable to expect that people would pump up their volunteering tires ahead of application season. There are some youth organizations, however, that push the boundaries of simply trying to stand out on an application, and go past harmless embellishment of their accomplishments. And that’s where a more serious problem lies.

Some category 1(b) organizations in particular have gone completely beyond negligible inflation to, in some instances, film, photograph, manipulate, and outright take advantage of real crises in Vancouver for their supposed goodwill to be promoted on social media. To make matters worse, many of the students par ticipating in these organizations activities’ themselves do not have a solid understanding of the issues or “stigmas” they claim to be combatting.

One of my peers remarked that this end of the spectrum displays an extraordinar y level of privilege and ignorance, and actually adds to crises through fascicle attempts at social aid.

In the quest for letters of admission, a substantial number of students students are propping up disingenuous non-profits that exploit social movements and systemic inequalities in exchange for a bolstered post-secondary application. While there are many youth organizations that are, well, genuinely genuine, the ecosystem is polluted with far too much trash.

Students are capable of taking on complex issues and doing work that actually does change and better their communities. But, the sheer number of disingenuous non-profits star ted by youth calls for action on the part of teachers and anyone who raises high school kids to guide students away from dishonestly simulating volunteer work, and from admissions officers to begin cracking down and sending a signal that they aren’t interested in rewarding insincerity.