The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (www.wkkf.org) launched a new leadership development program designed to strengthen community leaders as they address their own local issues. The Kellogg Leadership for Community Change (KLCC) series will focus on cultivating a group of community leaders on specific issues over a two-year period.

The first program in the series will focus on leadership for improving teaching and learning in 6 communities. The KLCC approach emphasizes collaborative leadership and aims to draw upon the participants' collective strengths in their own community.

As the Kellogg Foundation's Coordinating Organization, IEL - in partnership with the Center for Ethical Leadership (http://www.ethicalleadership.org) is organizing and managing the implementation of the initiative and acting as an intermediary between the communities and the foundation.

The Foundation's goals for this initiative can be summarized as follows:

• Develop collaborative leadership in order to advance new visions of learning in local communities.
  
  
• Develop leadership action plan related to issues affecting the quality and equity of teaching and learning in the context of their community.
  
  
• Bring new people into leadership (particularly disenfranchised) whose voices offer new and different perspectives to catalyzing and sustaining community change.

The first 27-month session of this multi year project will focus on "strengthening public will and action towards quality teaching and learning" in six communities:

• Cibola County (West Central), New Mexico;
  
• Buffalo, New York;
  
• Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana;
  
• Minneapolis, Minnesota;
  
• Delta Area, South Texas (a multi-city collaborative: Edcouch, Elsa, La Villa, Monte Alto, San Carlos, and La Blanca);
  
• Northwestern, Wisconsin (a multi-county collaborative: Birchwood, Bruce, Flambeau, Weyerhaeuser, and Winter)

Why the KLCC program is unique and innovative

• Integrates a model for mobilizing community action with individual leadership development and the   development of an "evergreen" collaborative cadre of leaders in each community.
  
  
• Creates a framework within which each community can find itself and assess what work is needed.
  
  
• Combines inner reflective work of finding values, courage, hope with concrete methods of mobilizing change through analyzing data, thinking systemically and focusing on action.
  
  
• Learning and action are interwoven during an upwardly spiraling process - resulting in increased capacity of the individual and group as time goes along.
  
  
• While honoring the wisdom of each community, will establish a national network to share local skills and   talents; will create a national learning community.
  
  
• Will inspire commitment for long-term community stewardship growing out of a specific project to improve   teaching and learning.
  
  
• Collectively, the partnership brings a wide range of local, regional and national connections to key   stakeholder groups and issue area experts.

KLCC Beliefs: Leadership for Community Change in the 21st Century

• Changing communities in the 21st Century demands leaders who know their own values, who develop their own and other's leadership capacities and who share leadership in collective efforts for the greater good.
  
  
• Effective community leaders are familiar with multiple approaches to creating change and are able to step outside their own viewpoints to see how others understand the challenges facing them.
  
  
• Successful community change efforts require the crossing of the many boundaries between individuals and groups, among organizations, in the community that exist in and potentially divide the community.
  
  
• Successful community leaders embrace the community's diversity and have the capacity to identify and engage all of the stakeholders and to mobilize public will.
  
  
• Leaders who can help communities imagine and then create a better future grow and develop by working on "real world problems."
  
  
• Effective, community leadership:
  • Welcomes diversity and recognizes that it is an asset.
    
  • Cultivates learning relationships with those who think differently.
    
  • Honors and builds on the history and culture of the community.

KLCC Theory of Change

There are predictable stages of community change and there are lessons to be shared about what works ¾ in developing leadership, in building strong groups of leaders in community and in creating community change.

The challenges facing communities require the development of leaders who can make intentional and informed decisions about various approaches to creating change. Such leaders have the capacity and the will to work together with other leaders who represent the many different organizations and perspectives in the community. These leaders are prepared to mobilize the expertise, resources and will of the community in order to support tangible and sustainable change.

Individuals from any social, ethnic, racial and economic group in the community are capable of stepping into a leadership role. Regardless of past experiences, individuals seeking to lead in their communities will benefit from opportunities to develop their capacity to collaborate, build learning relationships; and to work in multi-cultural and multi-sector settings with a wide variety of stakeholders.

To fully develop leadership capacity for community change, leaders:

• Continuously develop their personal capacity for leadership including finding their own values, passions and vision while remaining open to changing their mind.
  
  
• Behave in ways and use leadership tools that promote effective individual action and encourage new ways of working collectively.
  
  
• Create shared understanding that reflects the community's different cultural experiences and perspectives.
  
  
• Bring about change in their own organizations and associations, other institutions and their community in  ways that are consistent with their expanded understanding of the community.
  
  
• Nurture the development of other leaders and welcome them to the community of shared leadership.

Leaders learn by doing - by grounding their experiences in a particular place and by addressing challenges that are real and important to the community. Over time, this place-based approach to leadership development has the potential to create a cadre of leaders willing to serve as stewards and promoters of their community's vision for the future.

One major product of the first phase of this work has been the development of The Framework: A Tool to Develop Collective Leadership for Community Change. This is a document that depicts the states of community change and leadership development that can enhance the efforts of any group and is based on the theory of change developed by the two coordinating organizations (IEL and CEL) for this project. The Framework is an operational tool that translates the critical discoveries made during the design and delivery of this program into strategies and practices to help guide other communities toward a sustainable plan for change and improvement. It is available for download from the IEL Web site at www.iel.org/publications/klccframework.pdf.

Staff