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Introducing People Power Project! We welcome your participation during this pilot phase and beyond and are grateful to our supporters for making this work possible. At Butler Koshland Fellowships, we’ve had the honor of working closely with many of our nation’s greatest senior-level leaders and the joy of being in conversation with thousands of emerging leaders who are eager to apply their time and talent to creating positive change. With their guidance and input over the years we have developed tools and insights that are shaping our new project:

  • a talent search and selection process that is efficient, affirming, and equity-centered
  • a broad and diverse intergenerational network across all sectors of public service
  • a capacity for identifying leadership potential and a methodology for supporting emerging leaders

We are launching PEOPLE POWER in response to these needs

Organizations are struggling to connect with the kind of early-to-mid career talent they need to power their mission. It is hugely time-consuming for organizations to manage ad hoc searches, especially to reach the broad networks and staff the proactive strategies necessary to find diverse talent. Our senior leaders are doing critically important work in intensely stressful conditions and deserve more support with this; it is unreasonable and inefficient to expect that those who already have such vast responsibilities should also be expected to do their own recruiting and to do it well.

It is difficult and disheartening for people in their early-to-mid careers to access information about mission-driven careers and to connect with meaningful employment. Traditional career pathways were never designed to be welcoming to diverse social sector talent; career advising is limited and tends to be focused on the corporate sector and for those who are not served by networks of privilege, it can feel impossible to find the right opportunity. Those who have the greatest potential to be our future leaders should be affirmed in their choice to dedicate themselves to public service; they deserve access to culturally competent career advising services and to participate in equity-driven hiring processes.

How PEOPLE POWER works

  • Talent search services for mission-driven organizations:
    We will provide affordable, efficient, and equity-centered talent search services. We specialize in finding stellar early-to-mid career talent (5-15 years experience) because this is the greatest unmet need for most employers and the most underserved population by traditional recruiters.  Our sliding-scale flat fee structure (with small nonprofits paying the least and foundations paying the most) is designed to make high-quality services accessible to employers of all sizes.
  • Career advising for emerging leaders: 

    We will focus exclusively on early-to-mid-career rising stars committed to careers in social change who are experiencing systemic barriers to meaningful advancement or who might otherwise be underserved by traditional career pathways and networks.  We identify and select these leaders from our broad and diverse network.  We are able to offer these services free of charge because they are supported by the work of knowledgeable volunteers and generous philanthropists.

LEARN MORE

People Power is currently being piloted in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Puget Sound Region as a project of 501(c)(3) nonprofit Butler Koshland Fellowships / Community Initiatives and plans to scale to other geographies over time. As we expand our implementation, we are seeking to better understand the needs of this diverse and robust sector. We’d love to have your participation. Please contact me, Kate Brumage, Executive Director, Butler Koshland Fellowships ([email protected] / (415) 852-6932) to:

  • Talk! I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas.
  • Hire! I’m working in beta mode and am offering discounted employment service with an eye towards utilizing what we learn in order to refine the model.
  • Refer! Do you know an emerging leader in need of career advising? I’m offering services to candidates who can help us to shape and improve our model.
  • Introduce! I’m interested in meeting new partners who would be able to advise on or to participate in the process of developing this project.
  • Give! You can make a tax-deductible gift here. I’m in need of funding in order to realize this project more fully and would love to connect with philanthropists who are interested in leadership development. Any size of gift will help make a huge difference for us at this early stage. Thank you!

Thank you in advance for your participation!

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