Institute for Community Leadership

Mission

The Institute for Community Leadership (ICL) seeks to empower individuals and organizations to create a vision of a more just nation and world, and to develop and sustain within themselves the strength, hope, leadership, relationships and organizational integrity to bring about that vision.

Description

For nearly three decades, ICL has carried out character development, citizenship enhancement and ethical leadership education for students and teachers in 60 school districts, tribes and municipalities in Washington, Oregon and California. Through promotion of academic excellence, civic engagement, and post-secondary and career and readiness, ICL assists low-income, at-risk students, primarily of color, to overcome obstacles, succeed in school, and prepare for meaningful roles in college, the workforce, and community life.

ICL’s ethical leadership and civic engagement work is a community based, out of school peer-coaching leadership program that strengthens intergenerational, interracial social relationships to increase civic engagement, success in school, and resiliency. Yearly cohorts participate in an intensive leadership curriculum which engages them at all levels of program planning and implementation, including on the Board, in decision making bodies, and as a cohort of dynamic leadership class peer-facilitators. 

Students and families served at ICL come from primarily low-income BIPOC communities, from transient homes, immigrant, refugee, limited English speaking households, and/or foster care. ICL students have high school absentee rates and low graduation rates when they first join ICL, and upon graduation they become nearly entirely first-generation college students. In the areas where ICL focuses its current operations – the South Puget Sound Region of Washington and the East Bay Area of California -- systems-wide race and class disparities are evidenced in high school graduation rates, college entrance and degree conferral rates, meaningful and gainful employment rates, and student reported self-esteem and social agency.

Youth and adults served are approximately 

• 42% African American or African
• 38% Latino
• 9% Asian or Pacific Islander
• 8% White
• 3% Native American
• 92% low-income (free and reduced meal eligible at school)
• 65% from immigrant households
• 48% of the homes do not speak English as a first language

Research on ICL programming indicates outcomes including 100% increase in student civic engagement and 97.6% increase or maintenance of academic grades. Students attain 100% high school graduation or equivalency, 96.3% enrollment in community or four-year colleges, and 89% degree conferral rates. Data evidences increased analytical thinking, resiliency, communication skills, and respect for self and others. Students create values and relationships that enhance social and career skills and family life. Relationships are strengthened between students and authority figures, resulting in a stronger family, teacher, and student experience.

With nearly 30 years of successful curriculum development and practicum, ICL is in the process of re-writing and publishing our ethical leadership curriculum series for youth and adults. Curriculum publications will permit teachers and community leaders across the country to carry out ICL’s dynamic method independently. The newly published series will be accessible without needing an ICL affiliated staff to facilitate. The initiative actualizes the Institute for Community Leadership a “go-to” resource center for educational resources for individual and collective enlightenment. It is a sustainable investment in capacity for cultivation of diverse, courageous young leaders through amplification of agency curriculum, videos and educational resources.

Components include:

• Publication of agency core curriculum, authored by Executive Director, Dr Roy Wilson
• Production of Promoting and Protecting Democracy video series
• Production of classes and supplemental readings on Human and Civil Rights, curated and presented by Dr. Mira Foster and Dr Clayborne Carson, Stanford University’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Professor Emeritus, and founding Director of Sandford’s Dr. King Resource and Education Institute. Dr. Carson presents weekly classes to ICL youth weekly, including student dialogue and interaction.

See below for sample videos, or visit ICL on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@instituteforcommunityleade9190