-: My name is Mitch Isaacs, executive director
for Shafer Leadership Academy.
Shafer Leadership Academy is a not-for-profit organization
that creates local leaders in east-central Indiana.
So our charge is to develop leaders for both
the workplace and also for the community.
I'm the jack of all trades as the executive director,
we're a very small, not-for-profit organization
it's myself, one other staff member,
and our board of directors, and so,
it's very much like running a small business,
and when you find yourself in that set of circumstances
you do a little bit of everything:
supervision, marketing, sales, community relations,
program assessment and implementation, finances,
every aspect that you might expect of running a
not-for-profit organization and a small business
really does fall on my shoulders,
because there's only two of us.
We do intentional activities and exercises,
so when we're talking about a concept,
we might an activity to help you make sense of that.
Very brief example:
we do a program
on leading multi-generational teams,
and the whole way we do that program is by playing a game.
A professionally produced game board to help you
understand the generations.
So through the activities, and just as importantly,
through the conversations with other people in the class,
it really is a community approach to understanding
leadership because we feel like people bring
a lot to the table already themselves, and so they can also
learn from others as well as our facilitators.
Primarily, we work with working adults.
And so often times, who comes to us,
are the emerging and up-and-coming leader
in their community or in their place of work.
So when an employer sends somebody to us,
it's often that person who is already
demonstrating leadership potential,
or who they see leadership potential in.
Or, if people come to us through the community,
through their work in the not-for-profit sector,
or through neighborhood associations.
We just finished our 10 year anniversary celebration.
What that meant for me was mobilizing a force of volunteers
who went out and fund-raised for our organization.
Since it was an important milestone,
we thought it was a great opportunity
to raise funds for our mission.
So I had a team of about 15 volunteers
who were calling over 400 graduates,
inviting them to the celebration event,
and also explaining to them our scholarship drive.
In addition to that, I had stakeholders
that I was working directly with
to not only invite them to the event,
but ask corporations and significant community members
to make major contributions.
And that's in addition to planning all of the logistics
from the program, to the presentation, to the food,
to reserving the space.