We were lucky to interview the Producer of Your Big Year, Marti Grimminick. We can’t wait to share her insights and ideas with you about marketing and recruiting youth!
Your Big Year is the trip of a lifetime. In the past it has been a trip around the world. This year four winners will be chosen for a road trip across the U.S. where they will experience the sights, tastes, adventures, and local cultures of the United States!
Your Big Year ParticipantsRead on for our exclusive interview:
Marti, thanks so much for talking with us. You’ve worked with a huge variety of companies on topics related to youth engagement and strategy. What’s one thing the organizations and universities on GoAbroad should know about how to reach young people?
The key to youth engagement is to get youth involved in the designing process. Be authentic and let youth get to know the people behind your brand.
When did you first have the idea for Your Big Year? Can you take us through the journey from thinking about it to actually seeing it happen?
Your Big Year has had a rich past working with thousands of youth globally. Our partners from day one have been Smaller Earth and after Your Big Year 3, we paused on running the program. The space was then crowded with emergent youth leadership programs and we wanted to reflect on what made our brand so unique. In the end, what has made Your Big Year a success has been our youth ambassadors – youth passionate about our program and network. However, our hardest task to get a program off the ground is finding the right partnerships to make it happen. We need collaborative and creative brands who are passionate about youth engagement and transformational travel.
This year Your Big Year is a trip across the USA rather than around the world. Why did you choose the USA?
We were inspired to launch Your Big Year USA last fall when the report from Lynn Shotwell at the Council for Global Immigration (CFGI) stated “fewer than 10 percent of American college students have a global experience, and less than half of Americans hold a valid passport.” We had the idea to focus our program around inspiring more young Americans to discover their big year through experiences and travel.
If organizations or universities want to get involved with Your Big Year, what should they do?
Call or email us! We want to talk to you.
Marti Grimminick, Producer of Your Big TripHow can we follow along during the trip?
We will be posting daily social media updates on Instagram and Facebook, as well as creating webisodes that will be on Youtube!
What’s been the best thing about producing Your Big Year? What’s been the most challenging thing?
The best is working with the youth who join our community and network. The worst part is not having enough opportunities for the talented youth that we meet along the way.
You’ve come up with some creative and unexpected campaigns in the past – what can you tell us about what you’re working on next? 🙂
- Going global again with Your Big Year
- Innovation and leadership development programs in San Francisco for young adults
- Innovation and technology programs delivered to emerging markets sparking both tourism and economic development initiated by local youth communities.
Those all sound awesome! What’s your biggest hope for Your Big Year 2018?
Our biggest hope for Your Big Year 2018 is to spark a national conversation about the value of travel in development, empathy, career paths and just general well-being.
We hope that too!