Emerging Leaders 2023-2024 Session Details

* All sessions will take place on a Thursday. *

 

Session 1 (September 21^st from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm)

Who I Am as a Leader: Exploring Your Leadership Purpose and Values

The first session of the program will focus on exploring and defining each participant’s unique leadership style. We will discuss the expectations of executive and senior leaders and the characteristics and qualities that make them effective. Delving further, we demonstrate how this level of leadership is distinct from other types of organizational leadership. Using a diagnostic tool, participants will learn their specific strengths and how they can leverage them to work well with others. Participants will be encouraged to evaluate their awareness and understanding of power, justice, and equity—and to incorporate these values into their leadership. By the end of this session, participants will be able to clarify their personal values (and how they show up in leadership!), leadership style, and how to use their strengths to become a successful executive or senior leader.

Session 2 (October 12^th from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm)

Financial Leadership: Exploring Your Personal and Organizational Relationships to Money

One of the foremost responsibilities of a nonprofit organizational leader is fiscal management and oversight. Organizational budgets – revenue and expenses – should reflect the organization’s mission, vision, and values. Organizational resources should also be secured and spent in ways that support long-term organizational health and sustainability. Understanding your organization’s financial statements and fiscal systems and processes is critical to leading an impactful and sustainable nonprofit. This session will introduce nonprofit leaders to the basics of nonprofit finance and accountability and how they are distinct from program or project budgets. Participants will learn how to read and analyze organizational financial statements, accessible financial reporting practices, common financial metrics for nonprofits, and strategies for effective financial storytelling.

Session 3 (November 9^th from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm)

Fund Development and Network Building: Securing the Resources Your Organization Needs to Thrive

Building on financial leadership concepts, this session will focus on raising resources and creating an intentional network to support your nonprofit. Participants will learn the basics of fund development — identifying diverse types of funding sources; approaching, cultivating, and stewarding financial supporters; and making fundraising asks. Realizing these skills requires a strong and healthy network, this session will also have participants identify strategic community and organizational relationships and discuss strategies to develop them. Participants will leave the session with the confidence to build a public profile, leverage a network, and secure and develop organizational funds.

Networking Opportunities with Financial Supporters (December 7^th from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm)

Nonprofit leaders throughout southeastern Louisiana regularly emphasize how important personal relationships with funders are to organizational sustainability while also noting how daunting the process of identifying aligned funders and forming relationships with them can be. This networking session will provide an opportunity for participants to meet with financial supporters who are resourcing nonprofit organizations in the Greater New Orleans area as well as support participants in developing tailored strategies to initiate and nurture relationships with funders.

Session 4 (January 11^th from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm)

Sustainable Leadership: Embracing Care-centered Practices to Support Yourself, Your Organization, and the Communities You Serve

Leading a nonprofit is challenging. Pandemics, serious weather events, and persistent social injustices layer additional stresses on organizational leaders. And yet, leaders must still “show up” and be in right relationship with organizational stakeholders and, of course, families and friends. This session will explore time and energy management practices and help identify habits that impede care and sustainability. We will discuss how community care, organizational care, and self-care are linked; what self, organizational, and community care look like in practice; and how they all support the health and well-being of everyone in and connected to your organization.

Session 5 (February 1^st from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm)

Leadership through Relationships: Working with Your Board and Staff

An organizational leader is often pulled between managing their staff and answering to a board of directors. This session will offer strategies for working with both groups and cultivating their strengths and talents. We will also share ways to center your mission and values in decision-making processes with your board and staff. Sometimes these decisions can lead to difficult conversations; we will offer tools for navigating tensions and conflict resolution as well. Participants will leave the session with effective team building plans, project management strategies, and ways to support the leadership and professional development of staff members.

Session 6 (February 29^th from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm)

Closing Session: Leaders as Visionaries

All organizational leaders need space to innovate and vision! As executive and senior leaders, vision setting, strategic relationships, and community partnerships are critical to your ability to move your organizations, including the people you serve, toward a common vision. The morning networking session will provide an opportunity to interact with community leaders, policy advocates, and elected officials – including former Emerging Leaders! – who are intentionally and collaboratively strategizing to solve our communities’ persistent problems. The afternoon will offer time for leaders to design a program or organizational innovation or address a program or organizational topic of their choosing. As this is the program’s closing session, you will have an opportunity to share your learnings and speak into existence any leadership goals and plans you may have.