Grassroots organizations and leadership education

Abstract

Training and technical assistance organizations called intermediaries have sprung up in cities to help build the capacities of grassroots organizations, but they are lacking in rural communities and small cities. One potential intermediary in rural areas is the community-based leadership education (CBLE) program. In this paper, we ask if CBLE programs are a good fit for the capacity needs of grassroots organizations. This research is based on survey and interview data with grassroots organizations across the rural and less urbanized communities of Wisconsin and interviews of CBLE program coordinators. The results show that CBLE program offerings do not fit very well with the needs of grassroots organizations.

Keywords:

• community-based organizations
• leadership
• nonprofit

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funding from the federal Hatch program. An earlier draft was presented at the Rural Sociological Society’s annual meeting in 2011. We thank Art Lersch and members of the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension community-based leadership development team for their support in designing this research. We also thank Ken Pigg and anonymous reviewers from Community Development for comments on an earlier draft.