Meet VL’s New Programs
When I joined Valley Leadership almost four years ago, one piece of feedback from an alumnus reflected what I’ve seen and heard many times since: “The immense pool of talent, creativity, intelligence and caring that exists in the VL network needs to be directed towards a major community effort.” We’ve since seen that piece of advice realized in Impact Maker, which is now nearly 200 alumni strong, working with more than 30 community partners on seven issues that are critical to our community, ranging from education and the environment to health and racial justice.
Pressing pause on in-person leadership development opportunities last year gave us the chance to step back and look at how we can evolve with our growing, changing community to engage even more Arizonans to lead and work together on the issues facing our state in spaces like Impact Maker.
As we looked at ways we could promote greater access and inclusion – taking into consideration time, location, cost and experience – while maintaining the quality experiences that people have looked to VL for over the last 42 years, it became clear we had a chance to create something new.
We’re proud to announce three brand new opportunities launching this fall and into 2022:
Catalyze sets up Arizonans to take action in the community. Anyone ready to make a difference or grow their impact starts their journey with VL here. With a virtual format and flexible session dates, participants will be able to engage when and where it works best for them.
Explore takes people out of their community – and their comfort zone – to get to know the great diversity of the state and how our most pressing issues show up in rural, urban, suburban and Native communities. Participants will expand their perspective and forge strong relationships across the state.
Summit helps leaders deepen their understanding of an issue that has tremendous impact on our state and its residents. Our most flexible program offering, participants can take their knowledge and start putting it to work right away in their career, community or in Impact Maker.
That means Institute, Accelerate and our most recent program – Ready Together – won’t be part of our offerings going forward. But, at their core, these new programs reflect the best of what our former programs offered – connections, experiential learning, an opportunity build new skills – and much more.
We’re proud you’re a member of the VL family, and we hope you’ll welcome these new opportunities – and the people who will engage in them – to our community.
We look forward to answering your questions and discussing these new programs more with you at our Alumni Town Hall on May 13. And we invite you to come back to experience a new VL program or help up spread the word about these new opportunities.
