The Leadership Learning Community is located at:
1203 Preservation Park Way
Suite 200
Oakland, California 94612
510.238.9080

Curious about the Leadership Learning Community's history? Who is on the board? What it's all about? Scroll down or follow the links below.

• Who we are
• What we aspire to accomplish
• What we value and provide stewardship for
• What we think about leadership development
• What we do
• Our Board
• Our Support
• Our Staff

Who we are:

The Leadership Learning Community (LLC) is a national organization of people who run, fund, study and provide services to leadership development programs and are united in our belief that leadership can change our communities, organizations, and the world.

What we aspire to accomplish:

Our aim is to strengthen our collective and individual capacity to transform society by connecting the learning, practice and resources of those committed to leadership development.

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What we value and provide stewardship for:

• Practicing authenticity, respect for others, reflection and life-long learning.
• Promoting openness, sharing, and generosity out of a common commitment to accelerate learning and elevate the field.
• Inviting diverse perspectives and learning styles to engage in meaningful dialogue and activities that advance our collective knowledge.
• Asking provocative and meaningful questions that move our learning and knowledge to a deeper place of understanding and to advance our collective knowledge.
• Providing leadership development stakeholders with equitable access to useful knowledge, resources and community.
• Utilizing and developing learning and leadership development approaches that honor multiple styles of learning and collective wisdom.

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How we think about leadership development:

The Leadership Learning Community reaches out to those who share a commitment to strengthening leadership development. Many leadership development programs convene groups of participants over time, provide individual and/or organizational capacity development, offer financial awards or some level of subsidy, and combine core training and individual learning opportunities. Some leadership development approaches are embedded within community building strategies and focus on developing leadership within the context of specific actions, campaigns or initiatives. Within the field, there are also those who believe that leaders will benefit more from recognition and rest (sabbaticals) than development activities. Participants in LLC vary in their ideas about how to best support leadership and with what skills, but all believe that leadership can be strengthened through their efforts.

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What we do:

We identify questions that help to move our work forward. We develop processes to explore these questions collectively. We integrate and synthesize what we learn, to share with the field and inform our practices. We connect a diverse group of leadership development practitioners, grantmakers, and thought leaders whose perspectives and learning styles create a rich and deep understanding about how to support and develop leadership in communities. We build our own capacity and the capacity of others to lead community change. We steward learning circles and learning communities. We facilitate learning conversations and learning labs. We find and test promising approaches. We practice evaluation that is participatory and pushes us to the edge of our current knowledge and capacity to learn. We exchange tools and resources. We host a website that has a searchable leadership development program directory and affinity circle knowledge pools. We disseminate learning through regional meetings, the LLC website and our "Creating Space" national gatherings.

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Our support:

The Leadership Learning Community has been supported in many ways by contributions from the following organizations and individuals.

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Our Board:

Leadership is provided to our organization by an engaged and active Advisory Board. For more information about LLC's board, visit Board Roles & Responsibilities and Board Bios.

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Our Staff:

Bella Celnik, Administrative Director
I was drawn to LLC by the opportunity to be part of an organization where learning is respected and valued as an ongoing process; where the spirit of generosity and sharing are valued and encouraged; and where the contributions of each of the parts help to shape and reshape the whole. I was drawn by the chance to work with a group of people who are motivated by the possibility of creating a more just and equitable world -- no matter how ambitious that may sound. Having joined LLC just as it was getting off the ground as an "official" organization, I can see the profound and exciting learning and growth that has taken place for both of us. The opportunities to work together with a diverse community have provided me with some of my richest learning experiences and have introduced me to heretofore uncharted territory (uncharted for me). Working together, collectively, collaboratively, learning from one another -- I deeply appreciate and feel honored to be part of this process.

Deborah Meehan, Executive Director
I believe deeply that in order to change the world we must commit ourselves to learning and take up leadership. After 20 years working in the non-profit sector and in social change movements I know that we will not be successful in our efforts to support systemic and enduring change until we overcome our fragmentation. As a Kellogg fellow I learned through first hand experience that leadership development programs can help individuals and groups connect and work more collectively across specific issues and organizations. The Leadership Learning Community offers me the profound experience of being in a community with others who are willing to experiment with new ways of collective learning and generously share what they know and have to generate new leadership development models and knowledge. LLC inspires me and affirms our vision that together we can transform individuals and society.

Elissa Perry, Web and Community Learning Director • Learning Evangelist & Technology Wrangler
What initially brought me to LLC was the potential to bring together my interest and experience in education, technology, learning theory, and youth development in an environment that actively engages in learning. I hope to bring to the work passion, verve, humor, and a value of integration that honors the whole self in our processes, products, and relationships.

Perhaps the strongest attractor though, is the confluence between my personal philosophies and values and those of LLC with regard to open and equalizing ways of developing and leveraging collective knowledge and resources for social justice. To borrow a quote from Ray Eurquhart, one of our conversation catalysts at our national meeting in 2006, "[the work] is about solidarity not charity; all our liberation is tied up together."

Claire Reinelt, Research and Evaluation Director • Steward for Emergent Wisdom
In the late 1990's, when the LLC community was beginning to form, I was drawn to its potential to nurture relationships built on trust, respect, a profound commitment to social change, and a belief in the power of leadership to bring into being the world we hope for. I have always believed that we can learn and contribute more by crossing boundaries than we can by isolating ourselves and our work. It has been an honor to be part of a growing community that is asking and exploring meaningful questions, committed to sharing resources and learning, and seeking to generate useful knowledge and wisdom that can strengthen our collective capacity to lead change.

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