CLU’s invitation only Leadership Institutes create:

• Forums where leaders from Boston communities, labor unions and municipal governments will come together to investigate the region’s changing political and economic landscape for economic and neighborhood development;

• Opportunities for these leaders to analyze politics and power in our region, and to identify promising strategies for building labor/community power to influence decisions affecting jobs and economic development;

• Hands-on experiences for leaders from different constituencies to work together on a project that informs their thinking and CLU’s work.

We have held two Leadership Institutes, one each in 2006 and 2007.  The majority of our Institute participants have been leaders of color.  Our third Institute is being planned for the fall of 2006.

Our inaugural Institute was held in the spring of 2006 at UMass – Boston. A strong and dynamic group of twenty-five community, labor, faith-based and political leaders attended our seven, three-hour sessions at UMass Boston (hosted by the Labor Resource Center). We began the sessions examining the changes in our local economy, the rise of service sector jobs along with an examination of busing and urban renewal with regards to race and its legacy on our work. We then explored the nuances of city and state financing and subsidies, zoning and ways to impact private and public capital and development. Our final two sessions involved an interactive power analysis of our region and an exploration of where we (in the community and labor fields) should go from here. We were assisted in developing the Institute by Building Partnerships, the Public Policy Institute and the UMass Boston Labor Resource Center.

We held our second Civic Leadership Networking Institute in the winter of 2007.  We chose to use this Institute as an opportunity to develop stronger bonds between our Strategy Committee members.  Together we explored how to best use our recent research report for organizing, how to message our work, and we assessed CLU's direction.  Twenty-six community and labor leaders from our Strategy Committee attended four, five-hour sessions at UMass Boston.