RCLA's Social Change Leadership Network (SCLN) is offering a series of dynamic learning sessions in 2009 and 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.
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.
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 little 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.
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 provided the opportunity for participants to consider how different types of organizations and practitioners could best participate in organizing for justice, starting with the basics.
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As technology evolves at a rapid pace, the wide array of social networking tools often seems too risky or confusing for nonprofits to navigate, and organizations tend not to have the budget or time to allow for in-depth training or experimentation. Yet in an age of audience-driven public communications, organizations want and need to know how to build effective networks and use social media tools to enhance their social justice impact.
At the first session, participants learned about the various available social networking technologies and heard examples of the innovative ways organizations around the world use these technologies to advance and enhance their work. At the second and third sessions, participants got hands-on experience with learning, testing and customizing various technologies to determine what would work best in their social justice contexts.
»Learn more about the event | Access the social media tools
Joan Minieri, co-founder of Community Voices Heard and co-author of Tools for Radical Democracy: How to Organize for Power in Your Community, facilitated this learning session. Participants learned techniques for designing truly participatory trainings based on an understanding of how people learn concepts and skills differently. The session also drew on social change leaders' own experiences to examine and practice the fundamentals of creating effective workshops and trainings.
At this learning session, participants explored questions and challenges as well as successful experiences related to multi-generational leadership; consider a possible framework for understanding the current landscape of multi-generational leadership in social service, advocacy, community organizing and related fields; and identify possible next steps participants can take to address their own personal and organizational needs regarding multi-generational leadership.
Participants will bring their own experiences, exchange ideas, and hear from researchers and practitioners who have carefully examined the changing leadership landscape and its implications from a range of perspectives.
This session is suited for leaders from all generations: Traditionalists, Baby Boomers; Generation Xers; Millennials, and is especially ideal for people interested in exploring approaches to managing leadership transitions and a multi-generational workforce.
Special Guests: Frances Kunreuther and Robby Rodriguez (co-authors of Working Across Generations: Defining the Future of Nonprofit Leadership), and Esmeralda Simmons (founder and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Justice).
For more information on the Social Change Leadership Network, please contact the program staff:
Amparo Hofmann-Pinilla, Deputy Director, RCLA
Becky Rafter, Program Coordinator, RCLA
Join the 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."
