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Why
Leadership?
Too often, local leadership is absent or ineffective. From this problem,
many others follow, including lack of economic opportunity, education,
and employment, and the rise of crime and substance abuse. Those offspring
of the leadership vacuum combine to suppress, depress, and often destroy
human lives. Many members of our society are not fully expressing their
talents and their potential, do not fully develop as participants in our
society, and do not experience the full joys of life. As a result, our
humanity and our society unacceptably diminish.
To challenge these negative trends, we often seek to import resources--financial,
tangible and human--to struggling communities. In most cases, this strategy
fails to change the underlying systems that create and maintain conditions
of poverty and decay. Moreover, this strategy of importing resources has
produced dependency and, in some cases, perversely increased deprivation.
While we tend to see poverty as a problem in the fair distribution of
assets, the unfair distribution of assets is only a symptom of a deeper
problem involving community leadership. In many neighborhoods, while government
and foundation-sponsored programs have worked effectively to eliminate
specific social problems, they have failed to build the strong community
leaders required to bring about the rebirth of civil society.
How does the leadership deficit damage communities? This deficit
causes isolation, ignorance, absence of creative vision, lack of information
resources, eroding values, and lack of motivation. As we look within ourselves
to find the deepest source of our problems, we encounter this thicket
of related personal, interpersonal, and community deficits. Logic and
the social sciences suggest that we should break down, isolate, and address
our problems in each of their component parts. Following such an approach,
however, produces a surplus of initiatives that fail to address the organic
nature of our situation. A strategy of "divide and conquer" fails to recognize
that free spiritually-rooted human beings are the most important participants
in this situation. Focusing on any one "issue" or subset of issues will
not be productive for two reasons. First, the other parts of the system
typically continue to work as a team to subvert the proposed solutions. Second,
we merely act upon, rather than engage, our most powerful resource: we,
ourselves--the people involved and actually living in these communities.
Consequently, we fail directly and responsibly to marshal people as their own creative
and healing forces.
At bottom, I-LEAD seeks to help grass-roots leaders look within themselves
and work with one another to develop the core leadership skills that will
help their communities truly succeed. I-LEAD seeks to help people build
the capacities to help themselves through their own leadership. To use
a metaphor from the health care field, I-LEAD does not seek to eliminate
diseases or to ameliorate symptoms with band-aids, but rather to work
toward creating long-term community wellness and health through leadership development.
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I-LEAD's programming integrates a bundle of proven leadership skills
and knowledge,
and strives to change the fundamental systems dynamics at work in challenged
communities. One facet of this integrated model of leadership involves
skills that encompass and intertwine the interpersonal and the creative dimensions of leadership.
Another facet involves information regarding the nature of public and
private systems. Finally, practical computer literacy serves to
supplement and enhance existing leadership skills and knowledge to
impact community issues more effectively.
This programming
approach combines three unique strengths:
First, no program offers a comprehensive and integrated
leadership curriculum, organized around a relevant and
coherent model of community leadership development. While other programs
focus on certain discrete leadership capacities (e.g., conflict resolution,
managing diversity) or subjects important to leadership (e.g., public
policy, economic development), none weaves these critical skills and
subjects into one program integrating communications capacity, personal
and organizational effectiveness, knowledge of public and private
systems, and technology literacy.
Second, no other
nonprofit organization in Pennsylvania focuses primarily on actively
improving the leadership skills of grass-roots neighborhood leaders.
While other leadership education programs exist to serve potential leaders
in the business and public sectors, none specializes in community organization
leadership.
Third, no competing program offers hands-on,
experiential learning opportunities supported by trained faculty
and consultants. I-LEAD's partnerships offer its participants
a unique opportunity to put their training into practice in a reflective
environment that fosters real learning and opportunities for growth through actual community
service, providing on-going support and development beyond the classroom.
Skillful and knowledgeable grass-roots leaders are better able to create
deep and radical changes in their communities. They become self-sustaining
and plentiful sources of positive energy to others in these communities.
With improved skills and information, they create new wealth and new
opportunities. They attract new financial and human resources. They
engage others in a process of creative visioning. They also
learn to sustain their leadership into the future through the development of skilled
and informed leadership ability in others.
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I-LEAD's success can be measured through concrete positive impacts upon
community quality of life. Participants in I-LEAD's programs overcome
isolation by building supportive relationships with other local
leaders across Pennsylvania--both young
and old--who are facing similar challenges. As a result of learning
through I-LEAD and from each other, leaders who participate in I-LEAD's programs
have clearer and sounder visions of a healthier community. They are
more successful in working directly and in engaging others to realize
positive community visions. This success creates tangible improvements
in local quality of life. These changes are visible, not only in terms
of reduction of social ills (e.g., substance abuse, crime, and violence),
but also manifest in leadership's creation of new wealth (e.g., increased
education, productivity, and employment). Most importantly, while difficult
to measure, improved leadership gives rise in struggling communities
to both the sense and the reality of increased independence, freedom,
and happiness.
What specific skills
does I-LEAD seek to help leaders develop? First, the skills required
to create effective interpersonal
and organizational dialogue. Second, the skills required to
practice creative leadership.
What specific information and concepts does I-LEAD help students master?
First, I-LEAD helps students master important elements of public
systems and private systems. Second, I-LEAD helps students master important elements
of the practical applications of information technology and computer
literacy.
As a long-term evaluation effort, I-LEAD is working on establishing
quality of life measures that will help determine whether participants
have succeeded in improving the quality of life in their community through
their local initiatives.
I-LEAD has created
a replicable model that is widely and easily available for others to
adopt (and adapt), and is successful in addressing a broad range of community issues.
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The Institute for Leadership Education, Advancement, and Development,
Inc., or "I-LEAD," is a Pennsylvania nonprofit school, recognized
by the IRS as tax-exempt, pursuant to Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal
Revenue Code. I-LEAD was incorporated in July 1995, and obtained its recognition
of tax exemption in April 1996. It was recognized as a
tax-exempt school in October 2000.
District Attorney Lynne Abraham is the Chair of I-LEAD's Board of
Directors. David Castro is
the President of I-LEAD and its Chief Executive Officer. In 1991, Mr.
Castro joined the Philadelphia District Attorney's
Office, where he assisted District Attorney Abraham in creating
the Public Nuisance Task Force, and served as its first Chief. The Task
Force was the first inter-agency enforcement program
of its kind targeting crack houses and nuisance liquor establishments. During this time,
he also served as President of the 5000-member
Young Lawyers Division of the Philadelphia Bar Association, where he coordinated
the implementation of more than fifty (50) volunteer programs serving
the public and the Bar. In 1993, David was awarded a Fellowship
in the W. K. Kellogg Foundation's National Leadership Program. The Fellowship is a three-year
leadership training program awarded each
year to a selected group of young leaders working across the country to
make a difference in their respective communities. David devoted his Fellowship
to the study of community leadership development, and its relation to
improving community quality of life. Based upon his work in the Philadelphia
District Attorney's Office and through the Kellogg Fellowship, David and
District Attorney Lynne Abraham founded I-LEAD.
I-LEAD's programming
grew out of a series of community meetings, workshops, and surveys, beginning
in 1994. These early efforts to understand the problems facing
Philadelphia neighborhoods identified community leadership capacity as
the most critical need facing residents. Members of civic organizations,
town watch groups, police district advisory councils, and grass-roots,
community-based organizations recognized that leadership development was
critical to every important initiative affecting local quality of life.
From these early meetings, I-LEAD developed its initial leadership curriculum
and its Board of Directors.
In 1995, Mr. Castro joined the staff of the Lt. Governor
of Pennsylvania as the Director of the State's Weed and Seed Initiative.
Weed and Seed is a program that helps struggling communities combat crime
and poverty by combining law enforcement and community development strategies
in target, high-crime communities.
Since its beginnings, I-LEAD has tested and expanded its core leadership development curriculum
in several Pennsylvania communities--urban, suburban and rural--within
Pennsylvania's Weed and Seed Strategy, and through Urban Genesis, Inc.
and other supporters. As a result, by 2001, I-LEAD had trained over 200 community leaders drawn from neighborhoods throughout
southeastern Pennsylvania. I-LEAD continued to expand its efforts so that by 2005, approximately 3,000 community leaders had been
trained from sixteen Pennsylvania sites, including Aliquippa, Allentown, Chester, Coatesville, Easton, Erie, Harrisburg, Lancaster, McKeesport, New Kensington/Arnold, Norristown, Philadelphia, Reading, Sharon/Farrell, Wilkinsburg and York.
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