| "I
wish everyone in my community had the chance to go to Brushy Fork Institute."
Many participants in the Institute’s award-winning Leadership Development
Program have expressed the desire to have other community members benefit
from Brushy Fork’s programs. Now they can.
Citizen leaders working to develop strong communities now have access
to two new programs designed to build their leadership skills and capacity.
The regional programs will also increase connections among individuals
and organizations doing community work.
The Brushy Fork Institute will offer its first Annual Institute in
September 2005 at Berea College in Kentucky and will begin an intensive
Community Transformation Program in the fall of 2006.
The programs are supported over a three-year period by a $198,000
grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. Other
funders include the Berea College Appalachian Fund, the Wayne and Ida
Bowman Foundation and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.
Community leaders can register now to attend Brushy Fork’s first
Annual Institute to be held September 14-17, 2005. They will participate
in intensive hands-on sessions on topics such as community economic
development, nonprofit management, fundraising and running for public
office. Participants will also hear nationally known presenters and
will meet other leaders working to improve communities.
The 2005 Annual Institute’s keynote speaker will be Dr. Vaughn
Grisham, Director of the George McLean Institute for Community Development.
Grisham will relate the extraordinary story of successful community
development efforts in Tupelo, Mississippi. Participants will explore
how techniques used there can be applied in their own communities.
For information on the 2005 Annual Institute, visit Brushy Fork Institute’s
web site at www.berea.edu/brushyforkinstitute/.
In the fall of 2006, one community will partner with Brushy Fork to
begin implementing the second part of the new program format—the
Community Transformation Program. Brushy Fork Institute Director Peter
Hille notes, “We are looking for a community that is at the tipping
point—a community that, with an extra push, will gain the momentum
needed to sustain local, long-term development efforts.”
In the Community Transformation Program, leaders in a community will
take on in-depth community development work over an extended period.
Brushy Fork will provide leadership development workshops and technical
assistance. A core team of leaders will steer the program in the local
community and will involve multiple teams to accomplish projects and
create a community-wide strategic plan.
The Annual Institute and the Community Transformation Program build
on Brushy Fork Institute’s seventeen years of experience working
in central Appalachian communities. Brushy Fork’s programs promote
leadership perspectives and practices that are developmental, collaborative,
accountable, ethical and effective.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 to “help
people help themselves through practical application of knowledge and
resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.” Its
programming activities center around the common vision of a world in
which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for
self, family and community, and societal well-being; and has the capacity
to be productive and to help create nurturing families, responsive
institutions, and healthy communities.
To achieve the greatest impact, the Foundation targets its grants
toward specific areas. These include: health; food systems and rural
development; youth and education; and philanthropy and volunteerism.
Within these areas, attention is given to exploring learning opportunities
in leadership; information and communication technology; capitalizing
on diversity; and social and economic community development. Grants
are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean,
and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique,
South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.
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