The Players

Last spring, the Council on Foundations’ Community Foundations Leadership Team (CFLT) named CFLeads as its implementation partner on community leadership, and the two parties hammered out a long-term agreement in the summer of 2007. CFLT has a megaphone unrivalled in the community foundation field and a bandwidth that circles the globe. Of critical importance to the future of community leadership, it has ambitious plans to create a knowledge management system that will make the theory and practice of community leadership accessible to any community foundation in any locale.

We have assembled a formidable talent pool to bring heightened intentionality and increasing sophistication to the practice of community leadership. CFLeads brings a deep reservoir of knowledge gleaned from 15 years of working as a trusted partner with community foundations on social change. We are joined by Janet Topolsky and John Molinaro of the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group, who bring particular expertise in rural development philanthropy. Graduate students from Stanford University’s John W. Gardner Center, under the guidance of founding director Milbrey McLaughlin, complete the team. Other intellectual resources are at our disposal to support “just in time” learning as needs emerge. This effort is coordinated by Cindy Ballard of CFLeads in consultation with Ken Strmiska, Managing Director of Community Foundation Services at the Council on Foundations.