Mark Scheffler is president of Leadership Akron, recipient of a Knight Foundation grant that supports harnessing the talent of local business professionals through Community Leadership Institutes. Above: Robert DeJournett, Director of Community Relations/Diversity at Akron’s Summa Health System, shares insights on community leadership with CLI participants. Photo courtesy Leadership Akron. 

When Kendra Philon heard about the successful completion of the For Women, Forever campaign for Akron’s Women’s Endowment Fund, she did not imagine she would soon be helping to steward those funds.

Philon, an emerging leader at the accounting firm Meaden & Moore, recently completed one of our Community Leadership Institutes. When the fund, which is administered through the Akron Community Foundation, needed new advisory board members, it identified Philon as a Community Leadership Institutes graduate who could advance its mission. She is a transplant to Akron with portable skills; she could easily move on to another city, but she is deepening her attachment to Akron as a place that embraces her development as a community leader.

Thanks to Knight Foundation’s investment, more people like Philon will be growing as leaders, serving the community, and building their attachment to our city. The model took root through a collaboration with The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. In 2010, we identified an opportunity to amplify our mission with a foremost corporate citizen, and simultaneously advance their leadership priorities. A rapid-prototyping process resulted in a pilot that blended Leadership Akron’s community awareness and involvement with the leadership capabilities that Goodyear had prioritized.

Fourteen leaders from Goodyear completed the inaugural Goodyear Community Leadership Institute. Each session focused on one of Goodyear’s leadership traits through the lens of a community asset that is best-in-class in that area. One session on problem solving featured a visit to the Ohio & Erie Canalway. The learning opportunity centered on how the Canalway’s leaders navigated a problem-solving challenge: developing a recreational trail alongside this environmental asset, which threads its way through 100-plus miles of topography, jurisdiction, and land ownership with no legislated funding or authority. Goodyear’s leaders carried their insights back to their professional roles along with heightened enthusiasm for serving community.

Soon, other employers signed on to develop targeted Community Leadership Institutes, and today about half of the Akron area’s top 10 employers have their own. We also conducted market research with small and midsize employers. While they did not have the employment base needed to develop a company-specific Community Leadership Institute, they did see the model as a valuable way to develop their talent while encouraging community values. Now we offer two cross-pollinated leadership institutes each year, one in the spring and one in the fall, each serving 15 to 20 leaders from a variety of employers.  Each institute includes an opportunity to be an observer on a nonprofit board for a year, which typically leads to full election. Last month, we made 22 of these “board shadowing” placements from three fall classes.

Why does this matter? It strengthens the intersection of talent development and community involvement. The Community Leadership Institutes invite private sector leaders to explore the community as a fruitful and inspiring arena for their development as multi-dimensional leaders. They see beyond their spheres to the bigger picture of our community, develop leadership practices, and build relationships across sectors. For the community, the Community Leadership Institutes harness the talents and resources that come with involvement from private sector leaders. In a survey a year after completing an institute, 75 percent of participants indicated they had taken on a new community commitment, and two-thirds of these cited the institute as the impetus.

But we really couldn’t put it better than a former participant did on a recent survey: “Leadership Akron’s [Community Leadership Institute] was a priceless experience. My co-workers have mentioned how much they have seen me grow professionally and personally since attending this course. I have received a promotion, joined many organizations to get involved and had numerous community members recognize my efforts. Most of all I have gained confidence in myself, knowledge of Akron’s assets and have gained experience in leadership skills to apply in my career.