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What Have We Been Learning? A Community Leadership Learning Initiative Update

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Survey findings from the Community Leadership Learning Initiative

 

The Community Leadership Learning Initiative (CLLI) goal is to deepen our collective understanding of community-driven leadership. We want to raise the visibility of community leadership to philanthropy and the broader ecosystem of leadership and community development.

CLLI welcomes people from across the country to share in regular virtual learning opportunities. Together, our learning community explores topics such as:

  • What does collective leadership look like when operating from a cultural context?
  • How does a community’s cultural practices impact their authorship of their lives and future?
  • What are the conditions and supports that allow natural community systems to flourish and evolve?

With our evaluation partners, CLLI is working to refine key findings about what constitutes healthy and vibrant community leadership. Join our next CLLI webinar to hear more about survey findings from the Community Leadership Learning Initiative. We are excited to share what we are learning. Session information and registration link for the webinar are below.

Event: Leadership WITH/IN Community

  • Thursday July 9th
  • 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. EST/ 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. CST
  • Sign up now!

This session gives participants opportunities to examine nuances in community leadership and engagement. Learn how community leaders define and think about community leadership values, processes, strategies, and practices based on a survey conducted in February 2020. Nora Hall, Ph.D., and Karen Gray (GrayHall LLP) will share this snapshot of how Community Leadership Learners perceived community leadership work. We will discuss preferred community leadership approaches, leadership in communities facing systemic inequities, and leadership and community engagement.

 

We invite you to learn alongside grassroots community leaders, funders, leadership practioners and intermediary organizations as we explore the many ways we practice community leadership. Learning opportunities include virtual gatherings and in-person site visits.

In case you missed the Community Leadership Learning Initiative launch session last week, you can listen to the meeting recording here.

We welcome everyone interested in community leadership to register for our upcoming virtual gatherings:

Framing Leadership: Community Ownership & Authorship

  • Apr 20, 2020 01:00 – 2:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
  • Register for the April 20th meeting here.

Making Change: Discovering & Disrupting the Story of Us

  • Jun 3, 2020 09:30 AM Central Time (US and Canada)
  • Register for the June 3rd meeting here.

In addition to these virtual gatherings, we offer intentionally small-group settings for in-person, onsite learning co-hosted by community storytelling partners. Learners must apply and seats are limited. Early application is encouraged.

May 6, Boston MA—Unique Perspectives & Shared Power: Leadership as Solidarity

  • Integrating convivir to re-establish intergenerational and cross-cultural responsibility
  • Intentional code-switching to break silos and share power
  • Enhance skills for telling and interpreting messages across context/culture

June 24-25, Washington DC—Identity & Intersectionality: Leadership & Belonging*

  • Claiming LGBTQ identity and stories of belonging in multiple communities
  • Core practices of healing internalized oppression and resilience
  • Creating intentional community spaces to disrupt traumatic response behaviors

July 29, Buffalo NY—Recentering Culture: Celebrating & Shifting Norms

  • Combatting stereotypes that assume healthy, sustainable food is for affluent, white consumers
  • Highlighting core relationships between food, culture, environment and economy
  • Creating collective systems that reflect community values, history and experiences

Sept 24-25, Baton Rouge LA—Inverting Power Structures: Leadership as Movement

  • Creating fluid processes to collectively activate wisdom from those most impacted
  • Defying false boundaries between public and private, formal and informal
  • Leaning into a new leadership paradigm

*PLEASE NOTE: THE SITE VISIT DATE FOR WASHINGTON DC WAS CHANGED TO JUNE 24-25TH.

And don’t forget to save the date for our final Storyshare Convening, November 11-13th!

ABOUT THE COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP LEARNING INITIATIVE

Nexus Community Partners supports strong, equitable and just communities in which all residents are engaged, are recognized as leaders and have pathways to opportunities. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we created the Community Leadership Learning Initiative to deepen our collective understanding of community-driven leadership, while raising the visibility and demonstrating the value of this powerful work to the field of philanthropy and the broader ecosystem of leadership and community development.

We will convene three virtual gatherings for stakeholders across the country who are interested in exploring community leadership practices. We also offer opportunities, co-hosted by grassroots community partners, to experience community leadership in context.

Through this learning journey, we hope to identify and co-create:

  • Shared narratives and a framework for supporting community-driven leadership, offering people in different sectors and cultural communities new ways to talk about community leadership
  • Tools to help people think and act differently in support of community-driven leadership
  • Opportunities for resources to flow to communities more effectively
  • Shifts in systems so that institutions are internally organized and operating with community leadership at the center
  • Shifts in practice so that people own their roles and act with agency to effect change as part of the community

BONUS GATHERING!

As a Leadership for Better Health initiative funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we will be hosting a virtual convening for funders to better understand our relationship and role in supporting community leadership. (Funders only, please.)

Community Leadership Learning Initiative – Funder Convening

Mar 26, 2020 01:30 – 3:00 PM Central Time

Register for this funder convening here.

Nexus Community Partners and the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce (SPACC) are partnering to host an event to highlight options for retiring business owners to sell their enterprises to their employees. Businesses transitioning to employee ownership are a trending alternative in business succession.

Two thirds of small businesses listed for sale never sell, and only 15% are passed on to family members. Acquisitions by larger firms or out-of-state buyers often lead to layoffs and restructuring. But a local buyer may be closer than you think! Join Nexus Community Partners and SPACC for our upcoming event Next Generation Business Models: Exploring Benefits of Employee Ownership and find out why more and more employers are securing their company’s legacy by selling to the employees who helped to build it in the first place!

The event is an opportunity to learn from companies that have transitioned to employee ownership including Terra Firma Construction and Isthmus Engineering. We will also hear from industry experts including: Equal Exchange, Dorsey Whitney Law Firm, and Project Equity.

To register for the event, click here.

Here, is access to the Facebook Event.

Thursday, November 14, 2019 7:30 AM – 11:30 AM CST

Sunrise Banks – The Bridge

2525 Wabash Avenue

Saint Paul, MN 55114

Cost: $35.00, Breakfast included.

Keynote speaker : Ole Olson, Engineer, Isthmus Engineering & Manufacturing.

Agenda and panelists to be announced soon!

 

 

Nexus Community Partners is excited to announce that we are recruiting a diverse group of 8-10 dynamic leaders from Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities for our 2019 Cooperative Development Fellowship Program.

The seven-month program is targeted at individuals/consultants who would like to become cooperative developers, organizations wanting to add cooperative development to their services or incubate a cooperative, and other professionals (e.g. lawyers, capital providers) who are interested in supporting cooperative development. We are also interested in recruiting applicants who will focus on assisting business owners and their employees who want to convert to worker ownership. Please note that the Fellowship is not designed for individuals wanting to start their own cooperative.

The Fellowship includes the following:

  • Opening Retreat
  • 3 intensive, in-person trainings
  • On-line training modules
  • Group webinars with national cooperative practitioners
  • Local Site Visit
  • National Site Visit
  • Project design and presentations
  • Coaching and support from Nexus and DAWI.
  • Closing Celebration

All training, coaching and off-site travel expenses will be covered by Nexus.

The Fellowship requires a time commitment of between 75-85 hours over the course of seven months, with participation in all program activities mandatory. A timeline for the program is available in the application below.

Applications are due February 25, 2019.  Visit this link for our online application.

Before you complete the application, we request that you attend one of our information sessions. You’ll get the chance to learn more about the Fellowship program and ask questions. In the event you are unable to attend, we can schedule a short one-on-one phone call. Please contact Nkuli Shongwe at nshongwe@nexuscp.org  to register or schedule a call.

For more information contact program officer Elena Gaarder at egaarder@nexuscp.org or community wealth building coordinator Nkuli Shongwe at nshongwe@nexuscp.org.

What does it mean to center culture in community engagement? How do our cultural identities impact our relationships in community? How do we get closer to our own stories in order to move away from extractive relationships toward reciprocal relationships?

On November 1st, 2018, Nexus Community Engagement Institute (NCEI) hosted the final Engaged Learning Series of 2018 to explore: What’s Your Story? How Identity & Culture Impact Community Engagement.

Introductions at tables began with creating and sharing I Am Poems, many of which were left to share back with the group.

Panelists Bilal Alkatout, Roxanne Anderson, Vina Kay and Susan Phillips spent the second half of the session sharing how personal identities have influenced how they are engaged, and how they engage others in community. Listen to the video below to hear their I Am Poem introductions. 

Following introductions, NCEI program director Avi Viswanathan asked the panel three questions followed by audience-panel Q&A. Check out the videos below to hear their responses to each question.

Question 1: What does it mean to you to center culture in community engagement work? What identities are you drawing from?

Question 2: How have your cultural identities been impacted by or impacted others when engaging community – either negatively or positively?

Question 3: What advice would you give to this group to build authentic relationships centered in identity and culture?

Audience-Panel Q&A:

This Engaged Learning Series was a brief two and a half hours to begin the discussion about centering culture and identity in community engagement. Feedback from the group included a need to further explore cross-class perspectives and deeper discussion around the impact of white supremacy in community engagement. We hope to continue supporting each other at future Engaged Learning Series in these topics as well as other opportunities and challenges in community engagement.

How do you effectively tell the story and impacts of authentic community engagement? How can we capture, evaluate and communicate the power of community engagement?

Join us for our next Engaged Learning Series to explore Storytelling & Evaluating Community Engagement with a dynamic panel of community leaders.

The session will begin with a facilitated panel with community engagement practitioners from Frogtown Neighborhood Association and another local organization (to be confirmed), who will share how storytelling has been a means of capturing the process and outcomes of authentic community engagement. Following Q&A, we’ll break into small group dialogue to explore challenges and questions regarding effective storytelling and evaluation of community engagement, and what opportunities you see in your own engagement practices to more authentically tell the story of engagement with community.

Date: Thursday, August 9, 2018
Time: 9:00 AM – 11:30 AM

Breakfast & Networking: 9-9:30am
Program: 9:30-11:30am

Location: International Institute of Minnesota
1694 Como Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55108

Click here for more info and to register!