Foundations and nonprofits have long valued collaboration, but a group of funders in Southern Dallas is showing how working together strengthens leadership and builds internal capacity.
Together, they’re helping local nonprofit leaders grow and achieving results none could reach alone, demonstrating the power of a unified approach.
“The nonprofit work in our community is very rich, and as we look to expand its scale and sustainability, we recognize that it starts with the leaders,” says Ashley Douglas, Vice President of Southern Dallas Thrives, an initiative led by the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. “This partnership is investing not only financially but also in the success of nonprofit leaders, their organizations, and the lasting impact they create.”
Building Leadership Capacity To Strengthen Impact
Southern Dallas faces challenges like limited access to quality education, economic opportunity, and healthcare — barriers shared by cities across the country and felt acutely here. Southern Dallas Thrives addresses these issues by delivering new programs, resources, capacity building, and partnerships to create real community impact.
Their Southern Dallas Roundtable brings together about 35 foundations from corporate, community, and family sectors to promote strategic, collaborative investment. Organizers help the roundtable focus on what to fund, how to fund it, and why it matters for both immediate and long-term results.
In recent years, Southern Dallas Thrives has also been asking local nonprofit executives about their challenges and examining existing capacity-building programs to look for gaps. An important theme emerged — community changemakers need more support for leadership development to keep making strong, lasting changes.
“Everything came back to giving our leaders the skills to be effective with funders and build relationships with other nonprofits,” Douglas says. “If leaders don’t feel confident in their skills to sustain and grow their work, that says a lot about the organization’s direction and potential to grow.”
Says Dr. Froswa’ Booker-Drew, a consultant who has worked in Southern Dallas for decades: “We wanted a program that could help leaders on the front lines do the work that they do even better.”
Although nonprofits recognized the need for leadership development, most lacked the budget to support it. That’s where a funder from the roundtable suggested the Center for Creative Leadership. We’re a nonprofit too — and as part of our mission, we provide leadership development opportunities that strengthen community and nonprofit leaders worldwide.
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A Data-Driven Response to Leadership Needs
CCL joined a Southern Dallas Roundtable meeting where we discussed how to collaboratively identify the community’s leadership strengths and gaps, and how this would help us create a program tailored to those needs.
From these talks, we initiated a Leadership Explorer for the Nonprofit Sector (LENS) report focused on Southern Dallas. LENS is a free tool that helps funders and corporate social responsibility teams make data-based decisions about leadership development needs for their grantees or staff. We received 49 anonymous responses from Southern Dallas nonprofit leaders, revealing which skills, competencies, and capabilities matter most for success.
The report confirmed what funders and organizers had heard — nonprofit leaders want leadership development that closes capability gaps in areas such as data-driven decision making and change management, and helps them put skills into practice. It clarified the program’s vision by highlighting the specific growth priorities and preferred formats for learning.
“The report helped us make the case for why a leadership program mattered here,” Douglas says. “The LENS report’s data and detailed insights from so many organizations made CCL’s approach stand out.”
Discussions with funders emphasized how leadership development for nonprofit executive directors creates a ripple effect — strengthening organizations, residents, neighborhoods, and the broader community — and how funders can link this impact to their investments when presenting to their boards.
Importantly, 4 funders in the Southern Dallas Roundtable came together to pool their resources and get the program started.
A Custom Leadership Program Takes Shape
Working with the partner foundations and Southern Dallas Thrives, CCL developed the Southern Dallas Executive Leadership Institute — a 9-month journey shaped by the LENS report and tailored to the needs of nonprofit leaders from many different backgrounds.
The first cohort includes 8 participants representing a range of nonprofits — from large organizations with multimillion-dollar budgets to smaller grassroots groups. This diversity was intentional to encourage sharing and learning among participants beyond the formal lessons. Douglas and Booker-Drew aimed for a more intimate experience than the traditional capacity-building programs in the area, which often included 50 or more people.
“Participants found a space, made specifically for them, where they could be vulnerable much earlier than expected,” Douglas says.
The journey combines assessments and 1:1 executive coaching with in-person learning sessions on topics such as Direction – Alignment – Commitment (DAC)™, influential leadership, Better Conversations Every Day, decision making, strategic thinking, and collaboration in funding.
There are leadership circles for honest reflection and sessions with funders and participants to share the program’s impact. These moments are helping to deepen learning and relationships, and to strengthen the work being done across Southern Dallas.
“Participants are gaining a supportive community that will help them sustain transformation after the program,” Booker-Drew says. “Funders are given an opportunity to walk alongside us during the program. Even funders who didn’t pay for this cohort have been showing up to hear first-hand about its impact.”
Douglas praises CCL’s authentic and flexible approach, which allowed the program to be tailored for Southern Dallas.
“Together, we curated a program specific to this community and moment,” she says. “There’s magic in that.”
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At CCL, we understand how community-led and community-based initiatives can help create real change and greater transformation. We partner with foundations and philanthropic organizations to create customized leadership solutions that expand leadership capacity and extend the impact of meaningful work even further.
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At the Center for Creative Leadership, our drive to create a ripple effect of positive change underpins everything we do. For 50+ years, we’ve pioneered leadership development solutions for leaders at every level, from community leaders to CEOs. Consistently ranked among the top global providers of executive education, our research-based programs and solutions inspire individuals at every level in organizations across the world — including 2/3 of the Fortune 1000 — to ignite remarkable transformations.
At the Center for Creative Leadership, our drive to create a ripple effect of positive change underpins everything we do. For 50+ years, we’ve pioneered leadership development solutions for leaders at every level, from community leaders to CEOs. Consistently ranked among the top global providers of executive education, our research-based programs and solutions inspire individuals at every level in organizations across the world — including 2/3 of the Fortune 1000 — to ignite remarkable transformations.
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