Curt Prins, formerly the Board Chair of Minneapolis’ LGBTQ youth organization District 202 has been named its new Executive Director. The organization closed its offices and drop-in center at the beginning of the summer because they had become prohibitively expensive, Prins told TheColu.mn in a June interview. Since the closure, District has been in what Prins called a “cocooning phase,” re-assessing its programing and surveying the needs of the LGBT youth community, Prins said in an interview today.

“We’re shifting the organization from being a social justice organization to being a social entrepreneurial organization,” Prins said. He cited the birth of the Trans Youth Support Network, or TYSN, as a good example of this new approach. “We’ve given birth to a lot of great organizations…prior to TYSN, District had a quite significant and focused trans programming. Now that TYSN has stepped up to the bar [we dropped that programming],” Prins said.

In the June interview, Prins told TheColu.mn that because many LGBT youth were looking online to find community — to chatrooms and social networking websites, primarily — District would be turning to a mix of online outreach efforts and face-to-face outreach efforts, including youth parties, classes, and other activities.

Despite the organization’s “cocooning” phase, Prins said District 202’s budget was healthy. “Not a lot of people want to donate when the organization under wraps, but when you cut that many fixed expenses out of your budget, you’ve got a lot of flexibility,” he said.

“By letting go of the center we were able to shift our funding allocations,” Prins said. In the old budget, 79 percent went to administrative and facilities costs, he said.

“In the new budget model, 68 percent will go directly to programming,” he said. “Programming could include the zombie dance [held October 17th] to sexual health classes to theater group. It’s opportunities for face-to-face interaction with youth…youth are creating community with their peers and the greater twin cities community.”

District 202 will also be seeing to build better relationships with the corporate community in Minnesota, Prins said.

Prins has been on District 202’s board since February of 2005.