New Leaders Council-Sacramento

The New Leaders Council (NLC) is a nonprofit with the mission to train the next generation of progressive leaders.  Each year NLC runs six month long progressive leadership institutes across the country.  I was selected to be part of the 2016 NLC Sacramento fellows class.  

Over the fellowship, we helped each other develop and act on our goals, long-term or short-term.  We were given a tool kit over the next months that included learning fundraising, communications, campaigning, and organizing.  During the campaigning weekend we learned how to develop effective messages. I realized that the main bill I was working on was effectively a campaign and the lessons I learned helped me hone our messaging when communicating with the coalition we built.  Running the institutes depends on each class fundraising for the next year's class.  The fundraising also helps NLC national open new chapters in different states.  Our class worked together to put on a fundraising event called "Sacramento's Got Talent."  Fundraising was one of the most intimidating lessons for me and I asked to be on the fundraising sub-committee to push myself outside my comfort zone. In addition to reaching out to alumni and others, I helped organize the information from prior years so we could set reasonable fundraising targets for each NLC fellow.  I enjoyed being part of the NLC family and so I applied to serve on the board for two years.

Both years I was elected to be Co-Chair of Recruitment and Selections.  I've worked closely with Kendra Marsh, my co-chair, as well as the board members who are in charge of alumni outreach and community outreach.  We partnered with local non-profits at our recruitment and outreach events throughout the fall.  We were able to create a new selections process that was blinded to increase fairness with clearly defined metrics for scoring candidates. One of the joys of being on the board was watching the growth of the fellows we elected go through the training-it was both inspiring and humbling.