My written introduction that accompanied my acceptance (and check) in the National Honor Society this week was decidedly minimalist: Kyle Hutzler is the president of Future Business Leaders of America and the United Nations Association. Both are personally important to me with my interest in business and politics, yet also challenging as a leader. Our school’s chapter of FBLA is a near fifty-person organization with a several thousand dollar per year budget (mostly related to travel). The UNA, by comparison, is an under-ten person organization, with no budget, but a tremendous degree of flexibility. Both present distinctly different organizational styles and goals – and as a result, require flexibility in how each is managed. And yet, the four lines that I left blank belied my membership in the Foreign Language Club, school musical, and authorship of a 30,000 word policy paper on education reform that will soon be sent off to the Davidson Fellowship.

FBLA’s primary functions are essentially travel and skills development, community service, and the school store (including working at special events throughout the year, such as the Festival of Trees, basketball games, and basket bingo). This month, we hosted the regional business competition of high schools. The three require a considerable fundraising operations and a strong communication flow. Our fundraising efforts were fairly successful this year: together, we eradicated a $3,000 deficit through an aggressive business mail-campaign using the county’s Chamber of Commerce for a list of local businesses. We meet thrice-monthly: twice for all members and once for officers. The meetings are frequently 1.5 hour sessions where we discuss past functions, continuing operations (like fundraising), and upcoming events.

The UNA, by contrast, has no set meeting schedule – though we average an official meeting once per month. Our work with UNA is straightforward: we field a group of participants in Model UN (where we recently competed at Chantilly High School and would have competed at George Mason High this weekend were it not for the weather). In addition, I have been organizing a series of co-curricular guest-lectures on notable topics for AP history classes. The organization is a good blend of teamwork and individual passion.

Our greatest challenge with both is a degree of managing growth: with FBLA, the challenge is in converting due-paying, but largely absent members into the core group of leaders that have helped this group thrive. Our challenge is in giving those members a compelling reason to invest in FBLA as more than a line on their resume. To mobilize those members, we began to update members via text message in addition to traditional e-mail updates. I’m very exited about the initiative – what I believe to be the only of its kind in the school – and am looking forward to continuing it next schoolyear. It’s important to open even greater levels of communication within meetings as well: I believe that ‘lessons-learned’ discussions after events are particularly valuable in getting a clearer picture from as many perspectives as possible on how we can improve ourselves. Within meetings, I’ve learned very quickly the importance of acting as a moderator by encouraging new voices and channeling opinions and ideas in such a way that remains focused on achieving an ultimate decision.

Perhaps the most important operational aspect of managing a club is fundraising. I believe that fundraising should facilitate a club’s activities and not dominate them. I will soon propose that FBLA implement a direct-mail fundraising campaign with FedEx Kinkos. For $1000, we could amass a contact list of 1000 businesses and mail them a funds request letter managed online. If 5% of the 1000 contacts replied with a $50 average donation, FBLA would net $1500 – with considerable upside potential.

Needless to say, there’s plenty of work to do. At FBLA, we’ve explored raising $5000 for Heiffer Intenrnational as our community service project – Northern’s community service program is prodigious – but were unable to realize the goal because we were not in a fiscal or organizational position to amass such funds. Now, we are considering making the project a two-year endeavor, giving us the flexibility to raise the funds – possibly by partnering with churches to help raise the funds. At UNA, our challenge has been in growing our membership and potential leadership base to a sustainable level. A successful guest-lecture series and an aggressive in-school campaign next schoolyear would begin to ameliorate this issue. (We’ve learned that a strong Facebook presence – with some thirty friends – doesn’t translate into full members.)

Personally, I’ve been able to manage my obligations in part by leveraging technology but a good deal of pragmatism. I use Google Calendar to keep track of my meetings, events, and personal time – and Tadalist for individual to-dos. I truly enjoy working within these organizations because they are consistent with my interests and talents. I am, while the commitments may belie it, terribly selfish with my time: I could never see myself ‘padding’ my resume through overcommitment. As president, I’m obligated to attend most events but don’t necessarily work every on. In these cases, I help with set-up or clean-up. I make a point of keeping time for myself and family – I try to read two hours per night, record House and Lost, and am in bed usually by 10. (While this is better than a lot of the folks who complain of being up until midnight – I’m still running a pretty good sleep deficit.) Homework has never been much of an issue for me, and as I increase my AP courses next year, I’ve got a pretty good buffer of time that I can use if necessary for work and study.

That’s all I know – for now.