Leadership Development and Fellowships

Progress is made by people. While we often focus on how organizations and institutions can create change, at the end of the day, it’s people doing the work. It’s people figuring out the best ways to serve those in need, doing research that can cure a disease or shape policy, organizing their communities, inspiring movements for social change.

Funders can directly support people who are making a difference by funding fellowships and leadership development. Fellowships are a way to support individual researchers, grassroots movement leaders, artists and others with great potential to make a positive impact on society. You might fund fellowships for individuals who could play a leading role in advancing a movement or making progress on an issue you care about. Fellowships are also a way to give individual artists the space and time to do their creative work, given that in U.S. society, few artists earn a living from art alone and most have to hold down other jobs to pay the bills.

Many fellowships and leadership development programs provide participants not only with financial resources, but also mentorship and guidance, institutional support, education and training, and connections to networks.

Why Donors Support Leadership Programs

Leadership development and fellowship programs often exist within traditional institutions of higher education such as universities, but they are also common in grassroots spaces, such as the Weavers Fellowship, which supports Black organizers, activists and social justice movement leaders. There are fellowships and leadership development programs for entrepreneurs, scholars, artists, activists, scientists and others, in just about every discipline and focused on almost any issue you can think of.

Within this area of philanthropy, there are opportunities for donors to fund sabbaticals, leadership retreats, named fellowships, gatherings of leaders, professional development programs and more.

For example, as part of its mission to improve the lives of children and young people, the Annie E. Casey Foundation makes leadership development grants for nonprofit, public and social leaders with an aim to develop “the strongest, most diverse talent and [equip] leaders to achieve better results so kids, families and communities thrive.” Leadership development grants support things like skill-building, collaboration among leaders, creation of the next generation of leaders, and leadership transitions.

Here are some basics about funding leadership development and fellowships:

Shaping the future composition of the field. Funding leadership development and fellowships is funding for the future. By giving resources to today’s leaders and nurturing the next generation of leaders, donors make an investment in people with the vision, skills, talent and potential to contribute to meaningful change.
Increasing creativity and innovation. Researchers, writers, activists, artists and organizers with the potential to make a big impact need space, time and funding to be creative, to think, to research, to do their work, to connect, to reflect, and even to rest and recharge. Working in a nonprofit or being an artist with a day job can make it difficult to find this space. Donor-supported sabbaticals, retreats, research years and the like can be essential to supporting creativity and innovation.
Recharging long-term leaders. Nonprofit jobs and social movement leadership can be tiring and are often under-resourced. One way to support the people who are working day in and day out to make a difference on an issue you care about is to fund opportunities for rest and rejuvenation. That might be a retreat, a residency, or a weekend-long gathering where leaders from different organizations can connect in a relaxed setting.
Connecting leaders to increase collaboration. One way to support leadership development is to fund network gatherings, conferences and educational programs where leaders from different organizations or disciplines come together to learn from one another, brainstorm, strategize and build relationships that lead to increased collaboration.

Key Considerations

The basic idea of nurturing leadership is highly laudable and has obvious positive applications in nearly any field a donor would want to support. But there are issues that supporters of leadership development and fellowships should keep in mind:

Assessing results is a challenge. Building the human capital of a field is a long-term proposition, so understanding how well your leadership development or fellowship program is working can be tough. There are many ways to assess short-term outcomes like participant feedback and tracking leader results after involvement in the program, but those data points might not really give a clear picture of what the field would have looked like without the program. When you are considering supporting a leadership program, you may want to have conversations about what impact you hope to have on the field over the long term and shape assessment processes to determine if your funding is making a real difference.

Power dynamics of picking winners and losers. When a program identifies individuals to benefit from resources that will enhance their careers and their standing in the field, there is inevitably an element of giving an award of recognition, and therefore, the people bestowing that honor are wielding some power over the field. This element of picking winners and losers is often called out in the media covering the field, and complaints often arise about fairness. Be prepared to defend the methods you use to choose leaders to benefit from your support, and make sure your program has a thorough examination of equity concerns in the field.

Taking Action

Below are some tips for identifying organizations and institutions that can effectively implement a leadership development or fellowship program. You can also see our guides on giving for specific causes.

Contribute to an existing program. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Start by looking at existing fellowships and leadership development programs focused on issues you care about — there might even be such a program at a nonprofit you already support. If there is a program that interests you, reach out to the organization and inquire. If they are not accepting new donations, they may be able to suggest other funding opportunities for you.
Examine the program’s track record. Most fellowship or leadership development programs will have a list of fellows or grant recipients. Are they people you respect and admire who have gone on to make a positive impact on an issue you care about? If none of the program participants are familiar to you, that’s not necessarily a bad sign. Look up a few of the names and learn about the kind of work they do. If it seems like the kind of work you want to support, the program may yet be a good fit.
Work with a nonprofit or consultant you trust. If you are already giving to a nonprofit for which you would like to support leadership development, they may work with you to set up a new fellowship or leadership development program housed at their organization — for example, suppose you already give general operating support to a nonprofit that provides mental healthcare to uninsured people. They may be able to work with you to set up a new fellowship to support the next generation of therapists from within the community they serve. If you’re more interested in a standalone program, consider working with a philanthropic consultant who can advise on best practices and connect you to others in the field to ensure your program is effective and impactful.
Make a multi-year commitment. When nonprofits know they have dependable funding, they are able to make long-term plans and to take a breather from the hamster wheel of constant fundraising. Leadership development and fellowship programs are most impactful when they are ongoing rather than one-offs, providing opportunities to develop new leaders year after year. You might consider endowing a fellowship so that it can support new leaders in perpetuity or over many decades.
Use intermediaries. If you don’t already have relationships with nonprofits whose work you trust and admire, it can be hard to figure out where to give. Luckily, there are intermediary organizations whose job is doing that for you. Community foundations and pooled funds exist for every geographic community or issue you can think of. They may have ideas to share about fellowships and leadership development programs that align with your philanthropic goals.
Collaborate with other funders. Try to collaborate with other funders to maximize your collective impact. You could join with a group of funders who each fund one fellow in a cohort, or bring a group of donors together to fund a conference of leaders.

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