Community Development

Leadership For A Changing World Launches Online Interview Series With Community Leaders

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Leadership for a Changing World Web site Overview of the Program The Ford Foundation's Longstanding Support for Leadership Download brochure and nomination form

Washington, D.C., January 29, 2001— Leadership Talks, a series of live online interviews with community leaders who are getting results tackling tough social problems, will be launched on February 9, 2001, 1:00 p.m. (EST). The series opener features a live interview with Lereen Castellano, executive director of Family Star, an early childhood education center in Denver that was created by residents of a Latino neighborhood on the site of a former crack house. The public is invited to participate by logging on to www.leadershipforchange.org.

The online series is sponsored by Leadership for a Changing World (LCW), a program of the Ford Foundation in partnership with the Washington-based Advocacy Institute and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. LCW has the following goals: to recognize the achievements of outstanding leaders through an awards program; to provide financial support for their continued work; to study how leadership is perceived, created, and sustained; to explore multiple forms of leadership; and to spark a national dialogue about leadership.

Leadership Talks will present online interviews with community leaders who represent the range of leadership styles and organization that can be found in communities across the United States. The first interview will explore how a Denver community transformed a neighborhood crack house into an infant/parent education center. Today, eleven years later, Family Star not only continues to provide the highest quality early childhood education to inner-city children, but it also serves as a community focal point for innovation in education, child advocacy, parent involvement, and neighborhood development. Lereen Castellano will discuss how a core group of neighborhood residents overcame great challenges to improve their community and how they continue to address inequalities and respond to community needs. The public will have an opportunity to ask questions during the interview, or to submit questions beginning Friday, February 2, one week prior to the live interview.

Over six years Leadership for a Changing World will recognize 60 outstanding leaders and leadership teams that are not broadly known beyond their immediate community or field. Leaders will receive awards of $100,000 to advance their work, plus $30,000 for supporting activities. Twenty winners will be chosen in each of the next three years, with the first selection announced in September 2001. The program also includes a multi-year research initiative and numerous forums to bring awardees together with other leaders to share experiences, address specific challenges, and explore opportunities for collaboration.

For more information on Leadership for a Changing World, go to www.leadershipforchange.org. Specific questions can be submitted via email (info@leadershipforchange.org), phone (202) 777-7560 or by writing to Leadership for a Changing World, Advocacy Institute, 1629 K St., NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20006-1629.

The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has been a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide, guided by its goals of strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation and advancing human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Russia.