The programmatic work of Social Justice Leadership has been developed and based on decades of direct organizing experience and leadership development training among hundreds of grassroots leaders, staff, and others engaged by Social Justice Leadership’s work.
Many of SJL’s current programs and curriculum have evolved from or been informed by the programs SJL has initiated or collaborated on since its founding in 2003. The following is an overview of some of our past programs:
Leadership Semesters
The Leadership Semester was the first training program of Social Justice Leadership and was initially launched in 2004 in collaboration with NY Jobs with Justice (now ALIGN) and the Rockwood Leadership Program. The first Leadership Semester was described in its outreach brochure as “a training program to help you face your fears and inhibitions and to realign the daily practice of your leadership with the social justice values that drive you and your work. It is founded on the belief that the social justice movement can put together the elements for the type of organization we all aspire to have: a values-driven, skillful, and compassionate leadership, a culture of organizational performance that is uncompromising on results, and a perspective toward movement-building that is strategic and long-term in its outlook.”
The Leadership Semester was a 6-month training program for leaders and organizations based in New York City that combined multi-day and single-day intensives, coaching, practical assignments, and peer and professional support. Four cohorts of 49 people from 28 organizations were trained through the Leadership Semester. 19 of those leaders went on to participate in the Leadership Semester II, a program designed to offer more advanced skills in catalyzing personal and organizational transformation as well as direct support to participants in making these changes within their organizations.
The intent and content of the three Leadership Semesters which ran between 2004 and 2007 were the prototypes for much of what has evolved into the current TOI programs in New York City and Florida. Organizations that participated in the Leadership Semesters included CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation (CHLDC), Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), Dwa Fanm, Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), FIERCE, Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), GOLES (Good Old Lower East Side), Make the Road New York, New Settlement Apartments (NSA), New York Civic Participation Project (NYCPP), New York Jobs with Justice (now ALIGN), West Harlem Environmental Action (WEACT), Working Families Alliance New Jersey, and VAMOS UNIDOS.
New Orleans Transformative Leadership Program
Following from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and through the support of the Gulf Coast Funders Collaborative, SJL led an eight-month training program in 2008-09 in New Orleans to introduce a Transformative Organizing approach to organizing and movement-building to leaders and organizations working to rebuild the Gulf Coast. The program was based largely on the Leadership Semester and engaged 13 leaders in 8 organizations including Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, the Parent Organizing Network, Safe Streets Strong Communities, the Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans, and the Women’s Health and Justice Initiative.
The Jobs with Justice National Leadership Program
The Jobs with Justice National Leadership Program offered leadership and management training for national staff and the directors of local Jobs with Justice coalitions in 2007-08. The program was designed to increase the skills of individual leaders as well as support local coalitions in getting to the next level of development separately and in developing the Jobs with Justice national network as a whole. Modeled on the Leadership Semester, the Jobs with Justice national leadership program brought together 18 participants from across the country for three multi-day intensive trainings. In addition to staff from the national organization, leaders from local coalitions across the U.S. participated in the program.
Immigrant Advocacy Fellowship Program
The Immigrant Advocacy Fellowship Program offered training to a cohort of immigrant advocacy leaders in New York City to develop more reflective, skilled leadership that could bring about changes in the health, capacity, and performance of their organizations and the immigrant rights movement as a whole. Participants came from a broad spectrum of immigrant rights organizations including groups that focus variously on organizing, education, and service provision. The program was modeled on the Leadership Semester and brought together # participants for # trainings over the course of 2007. Participating organizations included Cabrini Immigrant Services, the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, the Flatbush Development Corporation, Human Development Services of Westchester, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, the New York Immigration Coalition, NY Lawyers for Public Interest, NYS Youth Leadership Council, Queens Community House, the Urban Justice Center, YKASEC, and others.
COIN (Civic Opportunities Initiative Network)
COIN is a national youth organizing program that was launched in 2008 by the New World Foundation, the Posse Foundation, a collection of organizing groups, and SJL. It’s goal was to engage young people in community organizing by providing support in Community Organizing Skills, Political Education, Leadership Qualities, and Academic Excellence through paid internships during high school and college that will collectively develop new young organizers in social justice organizations to be more strategic, balanced, and grounded in their work. SJL’s role as part of the national team was to develop the curriculum for the Political Education and Leadership Qualities segments of the program, lead national multi-day trainings and retreats for the youth participants, and train the staff of 6 community based organizations in the core curriculum focused on political education and leadership qualities. Six organizations participated, including Make the Road New York (MRNY), Tenants and Workers United (TWU), Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), the Community Coalition (CoCo), and CHIRLA.