Columbus Young Professionals Group Off to a Good Start
business, young professionals,
If you are between the ages of 21 and 40, there is a good club to join.
Link’d Young Professionals, backed by the Columbus-Lowndes Development Link, provides working people ages 21-40 with opportunities to network with fellow professionals. The program began in May 2008 and has already met with success.
“We schedule a social gathering every other month at a local restaurant or bar and average about 50 people at every event,” says Scott Ferguson, a financial planner in Columbus and chairman of Link’d Young Professionals. “We also have a charity that will sponsor each event, and the food and beverages are supplied by the restaurant or bar. We do charge a $5 admission, with all the money going to that night’s sponsoring charity.”
Ferguson says the mission of Link’d Young Professionals is to not only get people networking with one another but also helping them get involved in their community at a young age.
“For example, we have participated in community-help events such as a Habitat for Humanity work day as well as a Clean Sweep Columbus citywide cleanup day that attracted 400 people,” he says.
The organization also schedules a bimonthly Lunch-and-Learn session that lasts for 90 minutes and always features a guest speaker.
“One of the past luncheons had a speaker who talked about just getting started in the business world, while another speaker was a commercial developer who talked about the future vision for Columbus,” Ferguson says. “Then in April 2009, we had a speaker inform the young professionals about saving money at tax time.”
Ferguson adds that anyone from Lowndes County is invited to attend one of the get-togethers, and more information can be found at www.cdlink.org.
“We have fun, we network and we help our community,” he says. “I hope to see even more 20-somethings and 30-somethings at our future events.”
Story by Kevin Litwin
