Spreading leadership and responsibility across our organizations through the practice of democratic governance is one key way to break down hierarchies and counter the historical concentration of power in a few hands.  At the same time, leadership is a capacity that must be intentionally nurtured and developed - and intentional leadership development often requires clearly defined developmental hierarchies.  How do we navigate these tensions in our movements and organizations committed to liberatory practices and democratic governance?  What tools and approaches can we practice to ensure that everyone in our movement organizations receives support and accountability to support their own growth, without relying on old models that equate “leadership” with an outdated hierarchical “power over” model?  

Join members of the Momentum Community of practice, bringing their learnings from work in the IfNotNow Movement and Movimiento Cosecha, for Collaborate to Co-Liberate Module 11: Leadership Growth and Development. Together we’ll explore tools and frameworks you can use to nurture an explicit set of  leadership development practices throughout your organization and movement, in both 1:1 and group contexts. We’ll explore how to get explicit about what leadership means in your context, grounded in your people and values  - in particular, we’ll discuss how to identify the skills that are needed for success in your workplace or movement, and how to articulate plans for ensuring your members develop these skills effectively. We’ll also explore  the broader conditions and culture that we believe is  needed in your movement and/or organization to support ongoing and robust leadership development. 

This module is essential for:

• Activists, organizers, and changemakers within organizations who want to democratize leadership while ensuring clear, meaningful pathways for leadership development
• Organizations practicing liberatory governance who have experienced the tensions of dismantling hierarchies in ways that created leadership gaps
• Movement practitioners who want to strengthen their understandings of how to build leaderful movements

To view the other events in the series click here.

Are the tools we commonly use in nonprofit strategic planning processes – inherited directly from the corporate sector and military – serving us?  How often have you experienced lengthy or time intensive strategic planning processes that  produce plans that quickly become outdated or irrelevant, or are rarely referenced after completion?  Or, alternatively, have you been part of a movement that eschews strategy more broadly, abandoning visioning and planning in response to the urgent immediate needs of our movements?

In this final module of Collaborate to Co-Liberate, join Gopal Dayaneni, co-founder of Movement Generation and movement comrade in many formations (including Climate Justice Alliance, ETCgroup, the Center for Story-based Strategy and People’s Solar Energy Fund) to explore how can we learn to think differently about strategy and strategic visioning in our movements.  Learn new frameworks and metrics, informed and guided by liberatory politics rather than military strategy, to consider and measure key strategic concepts like goal setting, capacity assessments, and how to relate strategically as a movement to false promises, real solutions, and what’s politically realistic in our current movement moment.

This offering is essential for:

• Visionaries and strategic thinkers who want more liberatory models for planning and visioning
• Liberatory organizations who have struggled to create impactful, effective strategies to guide their movement work
• Organizers, activists, and movement changemakers who want to sharpen their understanding of strategy in their movement spaces

To view the other events in the series click here.

By Sue Bennett, Nonprofit Quarterly