Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) is an awards program sponsored by the Ford Foundation and implemented in partnership with Ford, the Washington, DC-based Advocacy Institute, and New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
The Research and Documentation Component, housed at the Research Center for Leadership in Action at the Wagner School, supports the program's broad goal of shifting the conversation about leadership in this country in both practitioner and academic circles. We do this by developing opportunities to engage award recipients in conversations and reflections to deepen our collective understanding of leadership practices and to produce new knowledge that is grounded in experience.
Over time, the program is developing deeper understanding of social change and community-based leadership to stimulate public interest and ultimately bring more support to the kind of community-based efforts that Leadership for a Changing World award recipients are leading.
The Research and Documentation team believes that creating a new conversation about leadership depends on the ability to describe community leadership clearly and with an authentic voice. Leadership for a Changing World looks to generate new knowledge about community leadership through a collaborative approach. We are committed to doing research about leadership with leaders, rather than on leaders. We invite award recipients to become co-researchers as they enter the program, to explore collectively how leadership happens in their communities.
Our commitment to co-research means that we will work with awardees and the other LCW partners to create activities throughout the program for co-researchers to observe, analyze their own experience, and share reflections about what makes their practice successful, and what leadership challenges they confront. Through these activities we will develop together new understandings of how social change leadership emerges and is sustained.