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Build the Skills
of Movement Leaders

Today, the Haas, Jr. Fund is striving to broaden the reach and impact of our longstanding leadership investments through new partnerships with other funders and the creation of an independent leadership development initiative.

Reimagine Leadership

To make extraordinary, enduring breakthroughs, organizations and movements need imaginative leaders with big visions, robust staying power, and the ability to raise resources for the long haul.

The private sector invests billions of dollars in leadership development because businesses know that skilled leaders are a powerful investment. Leaders who have the opportunity to reflect on their strategies, hone their skills, and grow their networks make better choices, innovate solutions and forge genuine collaborations.

Rea Carey

I can’t say enough about how important leadership development is. (I)t’s like adding protein powder to your other grants. If you want your other grants to be successful, if you want your grantees to do the best job in meeting their deliverables and moving the ball forward in their movements, you have to invest in leadership development.

Rea Carey, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force Foundation

Put Transformation Into Action

The Haas, Jr. Fund has been working to strengthen nonprofit leadership for more than 15 years, chiefly through our support for the Flexible Leadership Awards (FLA) program. We are now working with other funders to make it available to their nonprofit partners, with the goal of creating an independent program starting in 2021.

We work to advance leadership for the causes we support in three key ways:

The Flexible Leadership Awards (FLAs)

The FLA program engages executive directors, senior staff and board members to think expansively about where their organizations want to go, and what kind of leadership it will take to get them there. The program consists of three elements:

Flexible Funding

In addition to ongoing funding, FLA grants offer support for three to five years to address leadership opportunities and challenges.

Peer Learning

The cohort of FLA grantees meet online and offline to exchange ideas and provide mutual support.

Strategic Advice

Each organization is paired with a consultant to develop and implement a leadership development plan.

Learn More About the Flexible Leadership Awards

Field-Wide Leadership Investments

The Fund has also helped to establish two signature fellowships that address critical leadership challenges and prioritize collaboration and diversity in the immigrant and gay and lesbian rights movements:

21st Century Fellowships

The Pipeline Project’s 21st Century Fellowship supports up-and-coming leaders of color in gay and lesbian rights organizations to advance into greater leadership roles.

Learn More
Fellowship for a New California

The Rockwood Leadership Institute’s Fellowship for a New California supports leaders of immigrant advocacy organizations across the state to create a trusting network and build their own leadership skills.

Learn More

Program Staff

Explore our timeline of key milestones in Leadership

No matter how urgent and how dynamic the particular moment is, we are in organizations that are in this for the long haul. We have to also make sure that we’re taking care of ourselves, taking care of our staff, taking care of our leaders, and nurturing and growing our organizations.

Reverend Deborah Lee, immigrant rights organizer