Build Leaders

leader
We train community members and civic leaders to inspire and engage others to build stronger, healthier, more connected communities.

Society is one integrated system. Imagine it as a wheel: it can only work when all the spokes align in the center and on the rim. To make one spoke longer or to have another missing makes the wheel wobbly. Our efforts must strengthen the whole wheel. The question is how each activity supports others.

This perspective of community building requires a new kind of leadership: leaders who stand, first and foremost, at the center of the wheel and lead from the knowledge that economy, environment, education, equity, aesthetics, ethics, justice, health are all equally important. The result of all our work should be a multiple victory – it is good for many spokes of the society wheel.

At Pomegranate Center, we believe that every community benefits from leaders who understand how to be community builders – to collaborate, look for multiple victories, and turn differences into gifts. Our training programs are designed to inspire city staff, design professionals and grassroots leaders – anyone whose work would benefit from broad community participation – to become community builders in their daily work.

Here are a few resources to get you started:

Building Better Communities Handbook: A free and fast read on ideas for bringing people together to make your community work
Multiple Victories: A book about Pomegranate Center’s Art of Creating Community-Crafted Gathering Places

 

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Pomegranate Center Fellows Training

Change the way you think about, and do, community building.

The Fellows Training gives you extensive preparation — through tools, techniques, stories and strategies — so you can change the places you work and live.

This seven day interactive training includes:

  • Detailed strategies for wiring your project for success
  • Practical advice for handling the difficult personalities that make life for community builders difficult
  • Extensive hands-on practice facilitating in Pomegranate Center’s unique method
  • Techniques that encourage maximum participation without bogging things down
  • Access to our extensive and growing toolkit of resources, sample materials and articles
  • Ongoing mentorship and education from the Pomegranate Center team
  • And so much more!

Everyone can be a better community builder. This training is relevant for municipal employees, designers, planners, artists and grassroots community builders; professionals and non-professionals alike.

Here are some signs that you should be part of this in-depth training:

  • You believe connected, strong communities are essential to the future of this country.
  • You think our communities (and our nation) could do a heckuva lot better job collaborating.
  • You’re tired of community engagement (or any group work) being slow, bogged-down in process, and leading to nothing-in-particular.
  • You want to do something with your community to make it more beautiful, more sustainable, more connected… more awesome.

Sound like you? Fill out this form and we will get back to you about upcoming training opportunities!