Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant Communities - ILRC

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Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003Chapter 10Following Up With the Leaders andMemorializing the Project§ 10.1 IntroductionEven when a leadership training or civic engagement project is complete, the work of helpingimmigrants increase their power and voice will continue. After having trained a group ofimmigrant and refugee leaders to become active in their communities, it is vital to find ways tokeep them involved. It would be a shame to lose them and fail to help the community to takeadvantage of these activists.To help keep trained leaders and civic participants actively involved, we suggest that organizationsuse several different tactics. Not all will work in every community or even with every leader.Organizations might have to try different combinations of the strategies listed below, or even somewe have not yet thought of, to keep as many leaders involved as possible. Even if you use all thetactics you can think of to keep the leaders involved, it is unrealistic to think that you will besuccessful at encouraging all those newly trained leaders to remain actively involved in communityengagement projects. The goal, however, is to try to keep as many as possible involved in as activea way as possible.Here are some suggestions for achieving that goal:• Dedicate someone from your organization to be the permanent liaison between yourorganization and the leaders.• Start a new leadership project and enlist the leaders to help as trainers during the newproject.• Start another type of leadership project in which the leaders can participate.• Help find volunteer opportunities for the leaders in your organization and other likemindedorganizations, particularly on projects that benefit from their skills andknowledge.• Continue to encourage and help the leaders put on events in the community andparticipate in civic projects in the community.• Help the leaders start a support group or organization for others interested in beingleaders and civic participants.• Hire one or more of the leaders to work with your organization on leadership and civicparticipation issues.• Rely on some of the leaders for advice about the community you are serving and howyour organization can work in the community better.• Recruit one or more of the leaders to become members of your organization’s board ofdirectors and train these new board members how to effectively serve in that capacity.• Recruit one or more of the leaders to make presentations about issues of importance tothe community.10-1
Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003• Recruit one or more of the leaders to be on a leadership and civic participation advisoryboard for your organization.• Conduct regular meetings—monthly or quarterly—among the leaders to plan activities,socialize, receive updates, strategize and network.• Dedicate your organization to making leadership training and civic participationprojects as well as the follow up work to be part of your organization’s mission, longtermstrategy and fundraising plan.§ 10.2 Example: Centro BilngueCentro Bilingue, a grassroots, immigrant-led group in East Palo Alto, Calif., conducted a multiyearcommunity immigrant leadership training project. Centro proposed the following plan to keepits leaders and volunteers involved in doing community work:To ensure the long-term existence of the leadership project, the leaders need to become integratedinto the inner workings and decision-making of Centro Bilingue. By becoming an integral part ofthe structure of Centro they will gain a stake in the organization’s future success and viability.Presently the leaders are doing community work for Centro. However, they need to be able to callCentro their own so that the organization can spread out the responsibility for staffing and runningthe organization.To integrate the leaders into Centro, the board, staff, volunteers, leaders and an outside consultantwill devise a strategic plan for Centro. The plan will do at least the following:• Re-examine and reaffirm the mission of Centro.• Create goals to carry out the mission.• Create SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) objectives tomeet the goals.• Create projects to meet the objectives.• Decide when, how and by whom the projects will be accomplished.The strategic planning meetings will be attended by the board, leaders, staff and other activevolunteers. Additionally, these same people will organize either monthly or bi-monthly meetingsduring the next year and during subsequent years to discuss Centro’s work, development issues andstrategic plan progress, including the best ways to continue incorporating leaders and volunteers.With the help of some of the leaders and volunteers, Centro will raise funds to continue leadershiptraining and civic participation training. The benefits of the first two years of the leadership projectwill be greatly enhanced if a third year is funded because all the skills learned and practiced duringthe first two years will be refined and used within the community to a far greater extent, especiallybecause the leaders will use these skills to help Centro’s long-term success. Also since the leaderswho went through the trainings during the first two years of the project will help out as co-trainersfor the new training, everyone will learn and benefit from what the project has alreadyaccomplished. By training the original group of leaders how to teach leadership skills to others, the10-2
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