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 ALF chapters across the country offer a year-long Fellows Program designed to build collaborative leadership skills and an expansive leadership network across communities. 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 classes focus on dialogue skills for complex and generative conversations, developing an openness to be influenced by others’ perspectives, and build on trust that can serve their communities for decades. Some of the ALF chapters also offer Single Sector Fellows Programs or Innovation Networks.

Each Fellows class is composed of fifteen to twenty-five proven leaders from all sectors, who are selected in each chapter 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, systems change, and emerging themes in leadership. They also engage in a weeklong outdoor experience focused on building community, group trust, capacity for deep collaboration, and relational leadership skills. Their week together 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 where leaders of companies, organizations, communities, and movements convene and commit to mindful reflection, ground-breaking dialogues and co-creating new ways of being and doing that serve the greater good. Through the ALF Fellows experience, leaders reach outside of their professional training and networks to explore stories and strategies that raise our collective consciousness, deepen empathy and expand our ability to see, feel and lead in this ever-changing world.

Graduates, called Senior Fellows, form a diverse network committed to building stronger communities, using network leadership skills to identify and deal with complex regional and state-wide issues. The Senior Fellow Networks create opportunities to work together in ways that make a significant difference to their communities.

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.

Visit the Chapter and Affiliates Page for more information.