Hi, my name is Jack Abrey! I joined the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in 2022 as the charity’s first Head of Youth Engagement and, along with my team of two, set out to overhaul how the world’s leading independent conservation organisation thinks about, works with, and works for, young people.

Over the last two years, we have:

• Re-designed and re-launched a groundbreaking Youth Ambassador programme
• Delivered a new marketing policy currently enabling over 12,000 13-17 year-olds to hear from us
• Collaborated with the RSPB and the National Trust to release a short film entirely led by young people
• Led a national competition for young people to submit their ideas to ‘green’ industries
• Started designing a new membership product.

So you could say we’ve been busy!

But we’re just getting started.

As well as supporting young people to share decision-making power and co-create projects with staff through our Youth Ambassador programme, we knew that there was a huge opportunity to go even further: by supporting young people into strategic governance roles. By working with our fantastic Executive Group and senior volunteers, we collaborated to re-write the Terms of Reference for the Impact Committee to include young people (aged 18-25) and design and agree an inclusive recruitment process.

This committee is made up of national volunteers, with a responsibility of advising the Board of Trustees on the current effectiveness and future strategic direction of WWF-UK’s impact (externally facing) outcomes. It provides careful evaluation of the external outcomes to ensure that the key activities and programmes are well designed to deliver the intended strategic outcomes and impacts.

These young people will have an amazing opportunity to shape the future of WWF and will play a leading role in paving the way for further young volunteers across WWF.

We know that many communities are currently underrepresented within both the environment sector and governance roles - and we want to play our part in helping remove the barriers to these communities wherever we can. So, as part of this recruitment, we’re trialing new practices, including:

• A guaranteed interview scheme – for all young people who meet the requirements for the role and share they are from an underrepresented community and/or living with a disability, we will offer a guaranteed place on an interview.
• Sharing the questions and tasks in advance – to reduce cognitive load and anxiety, we will be sharing the interview questions/tasks with candidates ahead of time, so they can focus on bringing their best selves.
• Providing personalised feedback to all who reach interview – applying for a role takes time and a whole lot of courage. We’re rewarding that by providing personalised feedback to all young people who reach the interview stage or beyond – as well as ensuring we let all young people know the outcome of their application, regardless of what stage they get to.
• Collaborating with a wide pool of organisations – we are developing mutually beneficial relationships with a number of organisations who reach communities where we currently do not, to enable the sharing of opportunities on a wider scale.

The above is in addition to the Youth Expenses policy we created for all our youth volunteer roles, which sets out our policy for covering all reasonable expenses whilst volunteering for us – including travel, food and drink, data, equipment and if a young person is a caregiver, support with caring fees/family food allowances.

I’ve never really liked the phrase ‘offboarding’ - I think that every touchpoint is a chance to offer more than just one opportunity to engage. After all, if someone has taken the time and effort to apply for something, why would you want to waste that?!

That’s why for every young person who completes a full application for this role, we’re offering a free 12-month digital subscription to WWF, as well as a number of other opportunities and ways for them to get involved with our work. After all, bringing our world back to life will take everyone.

It’s a personal pet peeve that more and more volunteer roles are asking young people for extensive experience – it’s counterintuitive and actively prevents certain groups of young people from applying, which is why we’re recruiting for potential.

Young people don’t need any experience to apply as we’ll judge them based on how they can show a commitment to our organisational values and how they work with others. Then, we’ll support them to develop the skills they need by funding them through the UK Young Trustees Movement ‘Board Boost’ programme.

I am truly committed to supporting young people to develop the skills for life they will need in an ever-changing world, removing barriers to opportunity and enabling young people to lead.

I wholeheartedly believe that together, we will bring our world back to life.

https://www.wwf.org.uk/get-involved/youth-engagement/impact-committee-recruitment