Projects

Leadership Learning Team Project Overview   |   Project Proposal Form  |  Current Class LLT Projects
Prior Classes LLT Projects  |   Fellows Advisory Council Research and Reporting

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Leadership Learning Team Project Overview

A significant component of the Leadership Asheville program is learning about leadership, teamwork and collaboration through a community service project. Utilizing this part of the program, we are able to provide the critical elements that the Center for Creative Leadership identifies for an effective leadership development experience: assessment, challenge and support.

Community Projects link participants with community groups and provide hands on leadership experience, complete with all the challenges and opportunities that exist in the community. Each project is a team activity that often matches a group of participants from the current class with a mentor/liaison from a sponsoring organization and support from Leadership Asheville.

Community Projects are meant to assist participants to develop their leadership skills and provide a deliverable to the sponsor-a leadership capacity that they could not otherwise have accomplished. Community Projects are an integral part of the curriculum of the nine month long program.

The projects provide opportunities for people to learn together, utilize their leadership skills, and create networks that support the development of community capacity and social capital. The term social capital refers to far more than just warm feelings about community and good works; it emphasizes a wide variety of specific benefits that flow from the trust, reciprocity, information, and cooperation associated with social networks. Social capital creates value for the people who are connected, and benefits others. These benefits include things like increased volunteerism, increased philanthropy, better directed and implanted corporate social responsibility programs, increased social participation, and better citizenship.

Click here to watch a video that provides an overview of the Leadership Learning Team experience. This video was created by a group of Leadership Asheville 25 graduates: Kevin Baxter, Leah Madamba, Jason Mann, and Evelyn Zebro.

Windows Media File format (WMV)
download Windows Media Player

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Project Proposal Form (Community Organization Use Only)

Responding to the needs of our community is a critical element of the Leadership Learning Team experience. Does your organization have a need or issue that may benefit from the resources of a Leadership Learning Team? Complete our project proposal form and your idea will be shared with our Leadership Asheville classes.

Project Proposal Form (PDF)

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Current Classes LLT Projects

Brief summaries of Leadership Asheville 27 LLT projects.

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Prior Classes LLT Projects

Past Projects by Class and Year

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Fellows Advisory Council Research and Reporting

Several Leadership Asheville Fellows have joined together to form the Fellows Advisory Council (FAC). The members of the Council have organized themselves into five groups for the purpose or researching and exploring these five major initiatives:

 (1) Asheville Indicators Project: One committee, chaired by Jason Mann (LA 25), included Linda Carol (LA 25), Grant Millin (LA 25), David Meyer (LA 25), Robert Griffin (LA 26), and La’Zendra Bossard (LA 25).   They have been exploring the costs and benefits of having a community-wide set of indicators.  They are focusing specifically on the utility of a common reporting platform and the need for a set of measurements around civic vitality.  Jason Mann recently provided a report to the Board of Trustees on their research.  

The FAC has referred to many other community indicators projects, but was particularly impressed with what Boston, Portland and Spartanburg are doing. For example, Boston’s program is providing measurements in 10 categories and is a very comprehensive effort.  This quantitative information is regularly supplemented with community forums and research reporting.

(2) Facilitation Training Program: Another committee, chaired by Alan Kirkpatrick (LA 25), includes Mark Whitney (LA 25) and Jes Garner (LA 25). This committee project would provide training for Leadership Asheville Fellows in the skills of facilitation so they may serve the community as meeting facilitators for organizations and community-wide initiatives. The programs that have served as models for the research of this project are facilitation training initiatives out of Knoxville and Atlanta. Knoxville’s program has been an immense success and relies on a word of mouth referral base. Per their extensive research and exploration, the FAC recommended this initiative be added as a Leadership Asheville program on a schedule that is appropriate and conducive to its current resources.

(3) Citistates Research Report: Citistates, an organization based in Washington, D.C., studies and evaluates cities and then provides a series of reports based on their findings to be published in a local newspaper of the area. The benefit of this evaluation is that the community is made aware of its current status and is given a starting point from which to begin its chosen improvements. However, the cost and extensive nature of the Citistates project seems at this point too broad a spectrum to be pursued on Asheville’s behalf. Citistates has offered to assist Leadership Asheville in creating a “do it yourself” version of the project providing results on a much smaller scale, specific to the needs of the city of Asheville. Lisa Adkins (LA 24) recently provided a report to the Board regarding these research findings. Additional research on this project is still necessary before any decisions are made.

(4) Annual Community Issues Forum: The Community Forum project is a civic engagement in which key community stakeholders come together in a public meeting or series of public meetings to have dialogue about critical issues facing Asheville and Buncombe County. The outcome of the Community Forum project is that community members will feel more engaged and included in decision-making about critical issues, and community decision-makers will have a dynamic, diverse set of perspectives to consider when working to solve critical issues. Those working on this project include the Committee Chair, Rachael Nygaard (LA 23), along with Johnnie Grant (LA 26), Barry Kampe (LA 26), and Evelyn Zebro (LA 25). They will be providing a report of this project to the Board at the next meeting.

(5) Leadership Asheville Fellows Program: The FAC also has a team researching the development of a Leadership Asheville Fellows program. This program would be built around higher level team projects in the community. Projects being evaluated for inclusion in this program are civic vitality indicators, Leadership Asheville Spotlight television program, youth television program, and afternoon youth centers. Members of the Committee working on this project will be reporting to the Board at the next meeting.

The Fellows Advisory Council is of course still at work continuing to research these strategic initiatives and others on behalf of Leadership Asheville and Leadership Asheville Fellows. For information on how you can get involved in these projects or provide support of any nature, please contact Gerry Goertz at ggoertz@leadershipasheville.org.