Through the Social Change Leadership Network, RCLA partners with more than 700 social change organizations to advance their work on the front lines tackling society's toughest issues.
In environments of material scarcity, where people operate on the margins of power structures, social change leaders see abundant possibility. They work with resourceful and purposeful action, propelled to enact a vision of a more just world. RCLA sees this collective work toward the common good as leadership essential to guarantee, sustain and invigorate democracy.
As a dormant American civil society awakens in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis, the lessons social change organizations hold for the field of public service could not be more timely. RCLA partners with grassroots leaders to co-produce and document knowledge and facilitate learning about social change leadership practices that deepen civic participation and make social transformation possible.
The Network has three main aims:
As an academic center at NYU Wagner, a nationally ranked graduate school for public administration, RCLA scholars conduct rigorous social science research, employing a variety of innovative and participatory methodologies to the study of leadership. This research challenges the individual, "heroic" model of leadership in traditional scholarship to focus on leadership as a collective achievement. RCLA has worked with members of more than 700 grassroots organizations over seven years to document, co-produce and disseminate insights from their experiences. RCLA scholars conduct research with leaders rather than on leaders and ensure that the content and structure of co-inquiries are useful for nonprofit leaders' work.
This "engaged scholarship," or co-creating and sharing knowledge directly applicable to tough social issues, is a cornerstone of RCLA's work and reflects NYU Wagner's broader commitment to integrating theory and practice. These partnerships have deepened RCLA's understanding of the collective and community dimensions of leadership, broadened the existing field of leadership studies, and nurtured the work of social change leaders. The research illuminates a type of leadership that transcends organizational boundaries, works to advance systemic change, transforms ordinary citizens into active agents of change, and in doing so, opens up new public spaces for deliberation, debate and engagement.
Grassroots organizations face myriad challenges, from the complexity of strategic responses required to systematically address root causes of social issues, to the need to be sustainable with minimal resources and responsibility to multiple stakeholders.
Social Change Leadership Network quarterly learning sessions are designed to meet grassroots leaders' most pressing challenges. The sessions provide collaborative spaces that give social change leaders opportunities to reflect critically on their work, obtain new skills and learn from other dynamic individuals at organizations confronting similar dilemmas. They also yield new and practical insights and strategies for building organizational capacity and sustainability.
Learning sessions focus on action learning rather than theory so leaders can directly apply new knowledge and ideas from peers to their work.
Please click here for information on the 2009 Learning Sessions.
Today's social issues - whether poverty, human rights violations or global warming - exceed the ability of any one organization, sector or country to solve. RCLA partners with organizations in several countries in pursuit of a broader understanding of how worldwide leadership can be created and enhanced through local policymaking and strategic global advocacy efforts.
More than 20,000 civic networks and organizations working to tackle global policy issues have become active on the world stage - 90 percent of them in the last 30 years. These networks can amplify the voice of US social justice organizations by linking their work to similar efforts in other countries and to international rights frameworks. However, grassroots organizations often lack the time, finances and other resources to contribute to global conversations while focusing on the everyday well-being of their communities.
Through the Social Change Leadership Network, RCLA provides US social change organizations with learning resources that enable them to incorporate a global worldview into their work and to more systematically direct their advocacy efforts globally.
Social change organizations are grassroots organizations that not only provide services, but engage in a "bottom up" effort to address systemic problems in a way that increases the power of marginalized groups, communities or interests. These organizations do not apply a one-size-fi ts-all approach to their work in communities. Instead, they bring to the nonprofi t sector, and US society as a whole, a commitment to finding ways of addressing some of the most challenging social issues in a tailored way.
Through the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World program, as well as work with the Next Generation Leadership program, the Social Justice Fellowship and the activities of the Network, RCLA has partnered with hundreds of exemplary grassroots organizations and leaders, and the Network continues to grow. To receive updates from RCLA and the Social Change Leadership Network, please sign up here.
Have questions? Please contact our staff:
Amparo Hofmann-Pinilla, Deputy Director, RCLA
Emily Matos, Project Coordinator, RCLA
Join the Change Leadership Network to participate in trainings, learn from other accomplished and dynamic leaders, and get the latest research-based, hands-on tools specifically designed for nonprofit professionals.
Click here to sign up.
"It was interesting to hear
that many of our struggles
are similar; we have more in common that we think."
"We are our own experts;
to have that recognized and valued feels good."
"Loved [that] we were pushed to move beyond planning ‘activities' to activities that demonstrate learning. Very important distinctions. Thanks."
