Investing in Leadership, Volume 2
Grantmaker's for Effective Organizations
A growing number of grantmakers are recognizing that leadership development is a key driver of organizational effectiveness and are beginning to invest in new and more robust models to help their grantees reach their highest aspirations.
Grantmakers support many types of leadership development in the course of their work; however, this publication and GEO's work specifically focus on leadership development as a means of building nonprofit performance.
A PONO program evaluation identified gains in organizations' management and adaptive capacities,4 as well as in participants' networks, as a result of their participation.
The Meyer Foundation's increased emphasis on leadership has led to changes in its management assistance work and also to a desire to encourage other grantmakers to focus on leadership.
In Brief: The Kansas Health Foundation has made leadership development a priority since it was established in 1985.
Many grantmakers are intent on using leadership development as a platform for building networks of nonprofit leaders who can support one another on an ongoing basis, even if they are working in different fields or different geographic communities.
The need to look beyond the executive director became crystal clear to executives at the Los Angeles based Durfee Foundation as they implemented their Sabbatical Program.
The Jessie Ball duPont Fund launched the Nonprofit Executive Institutes in 2000.
According to Senior Program Officer Sally Howard Douglass, working with a specified set of organizations over time makes the duPont Fund uniquely attuned to the importance of leadership development and capacity building for nonprofits.
