The Leadership Journey:
Native CDFI Growth and Excellence

The CDFI Fund has a long history of providing support to the Native economic development industry. As part of the Fund's commitment to Native country, they have incorporated a special Native American focus into the Capacity Building Initiative, which will help the CDFI Fund achieve its mission by ensuring CDFIs have the capacity to meet the needs in their communities.

The Leadership Journey: Native CDFI Growth and Excellence offers advanced, executive-level training and technical assistance to help established Native CDFIs take their operations to the next level. The Leadership Journey is a tailored, intensive program that allows high-performing Native CDFIs and their leadership to focus on capacity building in the context of the distinct challenges and opportunities present in Native communities. Sixteen Native CDFIs have been selected to participate in a training cohort that will collaborate over a two-year period to access training, technical assistance, peer mentoring, and executive coaching opportunities.  

The Leadership Journeyy cohort members receive:

• Scholarships, which include tuition, travel and lodging, for two staff to attend four multi-day training events (see schedule listed below).  Scholarships are reserved for the CDFI’s Executive Director and an appropriate staff member of the organization’s choosing from each of the twenty participating Native CDFIs.
• Supplemental training for additional staff from the participating Native CDFIs provided via live webinars.
• Individualized technical assistance and executive coaching for each participating Native CDFI.

In order to attain the full benefit of this capacity-building experience, cohort participants are expected to:

1. Participate in all training events

• The Leadership Journey Launch -- February 6 – 10, 2012 • Albuquerque, NM
• NeighborWorks Training Institute -- May 7 – 11, 2012 • New Orleans, LA
• NeighborWorks Training Institute -- December 10-14, 2012 • Washington, DC
• The Leadership Journey Closing Place-Based Training -- June 2013 • Location TBD

2. Share challenges and success

3. Contribute to the cohort learning community

At the end of The Leadership Journey, each cohort member will have increased capacity, along with new tools, models and strategies to foster the growth and long-term sustainability of their organization.

Eligibility

The cohort for this Native CDFI program has already been selected. If your organization is not a part of the cohort, we invite you to find out more about other Native training offered by NeighborWorks, and to continue to check back for additional new offerings.