RCLA's Social Change Leadership Network (SCLN) is offering a series of dynamic learning sessions in 2010.
These sessions provide a space for leaders to obtain new skills, reflect critically on their work and learn from other individuals and organizations confronting similar dilemmas. A main goal of the learning sessions is to yield new and practical insights and strategies that contribute to social change organizations' capacity and sustainability, while also enhancing individual and collective leadership capacity for social action.
SCLN learning sessions topics and formats have been carefully crafted based on what we have learned through RCLA's work and research with social change leaders over the past seven years, as well as the input we have received directly from leaders through group interviews, surveys and learning session evaluations.
Each learning session is co-designed and co-facilitated by a team of RCLA staff and social change leaders with substantial experience in the topic matter. The sessions are made possible through a grant from the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World program. Thanks to this support, participants' fees have been waived. Please email us with questions.
Back by popular demand! Once again, Joan Minieri, co-founder of Community Voices Heard and co-author of Tools for Radical Democracy: How to Organize for Power in Your Community, in collaboration with RCLA staff, will facilitate a learning session that connects social change leaders to practical, diverse and effective methods of popular education and training.
Participants will be able to identify training methods that provoke critical thought, participation and partnership; learn with social change leaders and the RCLA team through hands-on experience; and enhance their training-design skills-set, such as designing truly participatory trainings, to help advance the work of social change organizations. This session also draws on social change leaders' own experiences to examine and practice the fundamentals of creating effective workshops and trainings.
This training is most beneficial for community organizers, program directors and coordinators that provide trainings, organizing and education work. Please note that participation priority will be given to those who fit this description and to social change leaders who are attending an RCLA Social Change Leadership Network learning session for the first time.
Email us for more information.
In this political moment, it is critically important to define and deepen our collective understanding of what community organizing is and how it helps achieve social justice goals. This learning session will provide the opportunity for participants to consider how different types of organizations and practitioners could best participate in organizing for justice, starting with the basics. Many participants come with an interest in exploring the organizing possibilities in their own communities or organizations. This session will provide the opportunity for participants to explore what community organizing is and how organizing for power is different from other approaches to addressing community problems; to see how to start or strengthen their own community organizing initiatives; and to learn with social change leaders and the RCLA team through hands-on experience.
This session is designed for a full range of staff, directors and community leaders, including those who work in social services, advocacy and similar nonprofit settings. This session is for those who are curious about, or new to community organizing and are considering or exploring organizing possibilities in their own communities or with their organizations. Please note that participation priority will be given to those who fit this description.
The RCLA Social Change Leadership Network invites people to come gain insight into current, groundbreaking community organizing campaigns and examine outreach techniques, movement building strategies, and leadership development methods for creating social change through community organizing. We’ll use hands-on, popular education techniques and hear from a range of locally-based organizers and leaders.
Email us for more information.
Social justice organizations often work on shoestring budgets in environments of material scarcity. Collaborating with other organizations can be a way of having a bigger impact with few resources. In this session participants will explore the elements of effective coalitions and organizational alliances. Participants will also learn practices and techniques for forming collaborations that allow organizations to accomplish together what they can't do alone.
This session is best suited for executive directors, program managers and program directors who have experience working in both successful and failed collaborations. This session is ideal for people who are looking for new knowledge from peers on how to optimize existing collaborations and nurture partnerships.
Special Guests: This session will tap into the direct experiences of practitioners as well as insights from RCLA's examination of these questions. Speakers to be announced.
Email us for more information.
Decades of research on multicultural competence in social work and other fields has found that self-knowledge and self-reflection are the foundations of skillful and respectful interactions across racial and ethnic groups. This workshop will provide tools that foster self-knowledge by enabling participants to surface and reflect on their often unconscious understandings of race, how it affects them and its role in their work. As a result, participants will leave the session better equipped to engage the sometimes thorny issues of race and ethnicity.
This session is suited for anyone from front-line staff to program managers to executive directors and board members who want to enhance their cross-cultural social change work by understanding themselves better.
Special Guests: Erica Gabrielle Foldy, RCLA affiliated faculty member, will work with other presenters with many years of experience helping others address race and ethnicity in interpersonal and organizational contexts.
Email us for more information.
Learn more about the Social Change Leadership Network.
You can also contact the program staff:
Amparo Hofmann-Pinilla, Deputy Director, RCLA
Becky Rafter, Program Coordinator, RCLA
Join the Social Change Leadership Network to participate in trainings, learn from other accomplished and dynamic leaders, and get the latest research-based, hands-on tools specifically designed for nonprofit professionals.
Click here to sign up.
"It was interesting to hear that many of our struggles are similar; we have more in common that we think."
"We are our own experts; to have that recognized and valued feels good."
"Loved [that] we were pushed to move beyond planning 'activities' to activities that demonstrate learning. Very important distinctions. Thanks."
