KICKSTART COMMUNITIES
Join a fellowship.
Join a Kickstart Communities Fellowship to gain the skills, learning experiences, and collaborations that are needed to take your work in communities to the next level. We offer two fellowships: the Champions for Change Fellowship and the Coaching for Transformation Fellowship.
About the Fellowships
When you join a Kickstart Communities Fellowship, you are tapping into a network of West Virginians who are committed to making positive change in their communities. Participating in a fellowship will support you in deciding what your voice and participation will look like as a person leading and collaborating with others to create change in your community. You will learn how to lead effective meetings, build community teams, create and facilitate events, resolve conflict, prioritize group projects, build positive partnerships, and other skills and best practices to help become the kind of community leader that you want to be.
Champions for Change: Community Leader Fellowship
The Champions for Change Fellowship focuses on individual leadership development for West Virginians who want to make a difference. Offered over the course of ten weeks with two in-person and three virtual sessions, this program builds the foundation for helping in your own community.
During this fellowship, you will gain skills in:
- Learning the stages and aspects of team recruitment and development
- Creating a “toolkit” with activities, tools, and ideas for building engagement and successful meeting design
- Developing foundational confidence to lead community meetings
- Learning key community meeting types and building a community meeting facilitation agenda
- Understanding participatory decision making processes
- Understanding the fundamentals of effective leadership
- Using strengths based strategies to guide your approach to effective community change
Coaching for Transformation: Community Development Fellowship
The Coaching for Transformation fellowship is a nine-month program that will focus on your personal growth, resource development, and foster a collaborative environment to discuss projects or ideas. While participating in this fellowship, you will work with an individual coach, develop your individual leadership and create peer relationships with members of your cohort.
During this program, you will gain skills in:
- Personal Leadership Development - How do you show up as a leader? In this fellowship you’ll focus on your individual growth and development as a leader in your community or organization. You’ll receive personal development coaching, and utilize Clifton StrengthsFinder to learn your innate strengths and assets. A peer support network with alumni and cohort members around the state giving you space to determine: How do I show up? How do I share and receive information and feedback? How can I best leverage these aspects of myself in my practice of leadership?
- Community and Resource Development - How do you support you community? This fellowship builds leaders that embrace personal development who want to apply these practices and values into the work in your organization or community to help overcome the challenges in your work. Additionally, increasing cross-sector knowledge and building up a personal network through a range of partner engagements, learning opportunities, community visits and peer relationships will prepare fellows to bring innovative ideas and solutions to their work.
- Collaboration and Project Development - Do you have a network to collaborate and brainstorm ideas and projects with? Receive support, feedback and peer mentorship around an idea, area of interest or community-based project. Through the fellowship, your peers, and coach can help identify funding sources, collaborations, overcome challenges, and developing partnerships. This fellowship is rooted in lifting up West Virginia leaders and communities that align with The Hub’s Core Values, our fellowship framework is based on the pillars from The Leadership Challenge. We explore: Model the Way, Create a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act and Encourage the Heart. We will invite leaders who exemplify these values to join us as well as visit communities to immerse ourselves in the rural development happening everyday in West Virginia. Our program is intended for folks with leadership experience in their organization, or community at various levels, that are grounded in work that aligns with The Hub’s overall purpose: Growing the overall community economic development system in West Virginia through collaborative partnerships that use innovative approaches to address systemic challenges for rural development. Our previous cohort members have come from many different sectors including arts & culture, community & economic development, education, government, health, media, non-profit, AmeriCorps service, and tourism. The common thread between participants is a desire to serve their communities and organizations in an inclusive and impactful way.
Who should join
The Champions for Change Fellowship is ideal for anyone living in West Virginia who is committed to making positive change in their community and is prepared to invest time into 10 weeks of leadership growth and learning.
The Coaching for Transformation Fellowship is ideal for anyone living in West Virginia who has completed a fellowship or community leadership program with the WV Community Development Hub in the past – such as the Champions for Change Fellowship or a coaching program like Blueprint Communities or HubCAP – or – who has experience with community and economy building.
Our program is intended for folks with leadership experience in their organization, or community at various levels, that are grounded in work that aligns with The Hub’s overall purpose: Growing the overall community economic development system in West Virginia through collaborative partnerships that use innovative approaches to address systemic challenges for rural development. Our previous cohort members have come from many different sectors including arts & culture, community & economic development, education, government, health, media, non-profit, AmeriCorps service, and tourism. The common thread between participants is a desire to serve their communities and organizations in an inclusive and impactful way.
Interested in joining a fellowship?
Send us your contact information and the fellowship opportunity you’re interested in joining. We’ll get back to you personally and make sure you’re on the outreach list when we open up applications.
Still feeling stuck?
Reach out to Olivia McConnell with our team at The Hub. She can answer questions and get you connected in to the right fellowship opportunity based on your interest and needs. Find Olivia at o.mcconnell@wvhub.org.
