LEAD – What You Will Learn
The following topics are presented in interactive sessions, allowing LEAD participants the opportunity to master essential knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors leading to the management and leadership competencies described in Key Competencies of LEAD Graduates.
Organizational Management
Cultural Competency
Learn effective ways to work with people and organizations from cultures other than your own. Based on respecting and valuing everyone's perspective and experience, this includes communication, cultural understanding, and teamwork skills.
Program Development and Evaluation
An organization's mission becomes reality through its programs. Learn to develop, assess and improve programs that advance your mission.
Strategic Planning, Strategic Thinking
Given the many social and economic changes facing our communities and nonprofits, no plan can sit on the shelf. Learn to develop strategic frameworks, then nimbly guide daily work along the most effective paths towards success.
Fund Development
Effective fund development not only keeps an organization alive, it builds friends that help you advance your mission. Learn how to match fund development strategies with your organization's present and future needs and execute those strategies productively.
Financial Management
While it is not necessary to be a CPA to provide efficient financial management, you do need to learn how to work effectively with financial professionals, understand financial systems and reports, and integrate the appropriate information into decision-making.
Human Resource Management
The biggest expense for most nonprofits is their staff. Learn the skills to hire, supervise, motivate and evaluate your staff for optimal performance.
Facilitation/Communication
Personal interactions in meetings, work teams, and among individuals can boost or sour any effort. Learn practical skills to facilitate even the most challenging situations.
Public Communications
A positive public perception of your organization and its work goes a long way toward developing generous financial, volunteer and community support. Learn effective, time-saving ways to cultivate your public image.
Technology for Nonprofits
How an organization uses technology depends on the communities it serves, its size and stage of development, and its future goals. Learn how to make the best use of the technology you have today and how to identify technologies to make your work even more effective.
Advocacy
Whether it is making sure individuals receive the services they need or changing public policy to better serve our communities, advocacy is a key, but often-overlooked activity of nonprofits. Learn how to influence the systems that affect the communities you serve, fruitfully and legally.
Leadership
Board Governance
Learn how to develop strong, mutually-supportive relationships with board members, build a board that champions your mission, and incorporate board members appropriately in your work.
Leading Organizational Change
Change is a constant, especially in the nonprofit world. Learn how to move your organization through difficult changes successfully, anticipate changes in the future, and take advantage of the opportunities that change provides.
Inter-organizational Collaboration
Build the skills to identify common interests and goals with other organizations and individuals and develop collaborative relationships that provide multiple benefits to everyone involved.
You as Leader
Understand your strengths as a leader, how to build your skills going forward, and how to develop the systems that will sustain you professionally and personally. Explore issues of decision-making, ethics, vision management, sound judgment, and accountability.
Leadership in the Changing World
Future leaders of nonprofits will face new and different challenges, changing communities, and varied political, economic and social contexts. Risk-taking, situation assessment, and astute analysis will be key skills to combine with entrepreneurial, collaborative, and transformative leadership for successful community improvement.
Confirmed in Compliance with National