ALF Fellows Program
“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained” – David Bohm
To achieve our goal of healthy, vibrant communities, each year each ALF chapter offers a year-long Fellows Program designed to build collaborative leadership skills and a boundary-crossing leadership network across the community. ALF starts by bringing together experienced leaders with a diversity of views and backgrounds for an intense one-of-a-kind leadership development experience. During their year together, the class focuses on dialogue skills for complex and controversial conversations, developing an openness to be influenced by others’ perspectives, and builds on trust that can serve the chapter community for decades. Some of the ALF chapters also offer Single Sector Fellows Programs or Innovation Networks.
Each Fellows class is comprised of twenty to twenty-five men and women – proven leaders from all sectors – who are selected in each chapter community to participate in the program. The program year begins with an orientation, and includes a series of monthly seminars on topics such as dialogue, conflict management and resolution, ethics, vision and change, and emerging themes in leadership, as well as a weeklong wilderness experience in which each class faces the challenge of scaling a mountaintop. Conquering the mountain is a collective and individual victory that leads participants to tap into seldom-used inner resources in a way that transforms their perceptions of personal abilities, and strengthens and adds new dimensions to their visions of themselves and others and what, together, they can do.
ALF distinguishes itself from other leadership programs by creating an environment that builds trust among a broad cross section of individuals who are already established leaders in their respective fields. These leaders are in a unique position to collectively and collaboratively bring to bear the diverse perspectives, the intellectual capabilities, and the power and influence necessary to make good things happen in their communities.
Graduates, called Senior Fellows, form a diverse network committed to building a stronger community, using network leadership skills to identify and deal with complex regional issues, and creating opportunities to work together in ways that make a significant difference to their communities. This Senior Fellows Network provides the fertile ground to develop additional relationship-based “networks of networks” that are equipped to help their communities manage the complexities of the 21st century.
To learn more about the Fellows Program offered in each chapter, please see the individual chapter website of interest. Several chapter websites include a video of graduates discussing their ALF experience.
Single Sector Programs and Innovation Networks
In addition to the general community Fellows Program offered in each ALF chapter, since 2006 ALF-Houston has offered Single Sector Fellows Programs. The goal is to build relationships within a single sector of the community by getting class members to understand each others’ roles and perspectives better. Fellows are selected to represent the broad range of perspectives that exist within a single sector and are brought together to establish bonds of shared knowledge and trust so that they will be able to collaborate more effectively. The curriculum is essentially the same as in a general community class but the people gathered together are all focused on a single sector. These programs are offered on a rotating schedule by sector. To date programs have been offered in criminal justice, public education, healthcare, community development, and workforce development.
ALF-Memphis has offered sector classes in both criminal and juvenile justice. Other chapters have offered other programs by sector, including a Collaboration Laboratory in Juvenile Justice at ALF-Oregon and Innovation Networks at ALF-Silicon Valley both in Education and Urbanism.