Nonprofit fosters business leaders
Kathleen A. Swann, Ph.D.
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Position: President and CEO of Leadership Rhode Island, a
24-year-old nonprofit formed by the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce that
seeks to educate business, community and aspiring leaders on important state
issues.
Background: Swann has been the head of Leadership RI for 10 months;
prior to that she was in Washington, D.C., serving as director of professional
development for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Before
that, Swann was a teacher for 13 years and reading specialist in the Coventry
school system and was director of professional development for Coventry Public
Schools and executive director of the Rhode Island Teaching and Learning Center.
Education: Bachelor’s in music and elementary education and a master’s
in education both from Rhode Island College; a Ph.D. in education with a specialization
in language, literacy and culture offered jointly by the University of Rhode
Island and Rhode Island College; certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown
University.
Residence: West Greenwich
Age: 47
PBN: Why is it important for business and community leaders to learn about
issues outside their own specialties, like state issues?
SWANN: One of the best ways for me to talk about that is to talk about what happened to me when I was in the program in 1999. When I went through the class I was in the central office position in the public school system, and working on my doctorate degree in education and felt that I was doing pretty well in my career. I was well-respected and had a lot of knowledge and experience in education – what’s considered a leader in education – and when I went through LRI, I was quite humbled, actually, but also very energized and very excited to learn what happens in other professions and careers. So I didn’t really have a good understanding of what happens in a day in the life of a police officer, or a clergy member or a business CEO. I learned a deep appreciation and understanding of what people’s work is, and what affects the business community. I learned a lot about how other people work, what their challenges are and naturally, how I can work better with them. In addition to establishing this great network and understanding the whole community of Rhode Island, I also learned how to dialogue better. I very quickly learned that no one profession, business or sector will be able to effectively and deeply improve the quality of life in Rhode Island, and that’s why we work together. We talk about the business community but the business community isn’t really the company – it’s the people, and that’s what LRI focuses on.
Q. How does Leadership RI empower people to make a difference?
A. Empowerment is something that comes out of it. When they graduate from LRI they have spent 10 sessions really looking at their own leadership skills, what they bring to the table when they start the program and enhancing those skills. The people who come to LRI are not brand new at leadership – they come to LRI because they have already expressed some ability in leadership, a commitment to improving the community, so we look to enhance that. They come out with enhanced leadership skills, a solid network of people to work with, and they come out with knowledge.
Q. In tough times, how can businesses motivate their leaders to get involved? How does Leadership RI do it?
A. It brings awareness and a sense of possibility. I think what comes out of participating in the leadership program over the course of a year and then continuing to engage with events we run after you graduate, you realize the potential that one person can have. And if you put that one person into a community of others working on a particular issue, you realize that what we do in the program is – when you’re in a session day, they are thematically organized – our sessions are always held on-site, where the action is happening.
Q. What does it cost to enroll in the program?
A. The tuition is $4,900 and that includes 10 months, 12-session days including an overnight retreat, all of the expenses associated with the program – if we are off-site, it might include bus travel. It’s all of your meals, including the overnight, which we hold at Alton Jones, and it includes all of your materials for the class, which are quite extensive. They’re organized around what you need to read to really understand the day, what to read if your interest goes in a certain (direction), or what you might use for reference after the session day. You’re getting, for that tuition, information and resources, access to the leaders that even if you were in a job where you had access to some of these people, it would be unlikely that you’d ever gather them in one room for a day like we’re able to do. We bring people together, so you’re gaining access to information and people, and it’s something that’s enjoyable. Our sessions aren’t held in college classrooms or hotel conference rooms – they’re held at the landfill or inside the ACI, at the State House.
Q. Is it standard that companies or organizations pay for an employee or staff member to enroll, or do you get a mix?
A. That’s the usual model, but we’re very clear and very careful that the class is balanced, so that it’s not just for-profit companies that can afford to send an employee through the program. We have a very active fund-raising component that raises scholarship money. We have an annual fund-raising event, and the total amount of scholarship dollars we awarded last year was $42,537. So that we’re sure that just because you work for a nonprofit or for a small business that can’t afford it, or maybe you don’t work. Maybe you’re a very committed community volunteer or a retired person – we find ways to raise money. And even once we’ve depleted that money we’ve raised or (money) from donors, one model we like to encourage is a corporation paying to send an employee through also donates money so that someone from a nonprofit or someone who couldn’t afford the tuition can go. The very first class was 1981 and it had 38 people; four of them were women. This was the business community, and it grew out of the business community. This year, for the first time, we have more women than men (32 out of 55 people enrolled this year are women).
Q. Who is Leadership RI competing with – colleges, other nonprofits, etc.?
A. There’s a perception of the potential for competition and I am working actively to not put it in the context of competition. I think there’s way too much competition, especially with nonprofits – there’s very limited funding that we’re able to access, and the basic premise of LRI is that coming together is more likely to solve a problem than competing against each other. If we truly teach that and believe that, then we’d better sure practice that. So the approach I’ve taken is partnering on projects and also doing careful industry analysis. We’re in the process of adding new programs – we have this wonderful 24-year-old highly respected program that runs 10 months of the year and we have a good history and reputation with that, but that’s limiting how we can reach out into the community. So we’re actively looking at how we can offer other programs to specific populations that could give them an idea of what we’re working on at LRI and the resources available here. A good example of that is the Emerging Leaders program. There are regional programs, but ours is statewide, and they’re different. I think all of the programs complement each other.
Q. What is the Emerging Leaders program?
A. I think it was a really important niche that was filled. We just started to think about what happens to students as they’re approaching (college) graduation at the end of their junior year, heading into their senior year. They’ve been students their whole lives and they’re about to be launched into the work force. So if we targeted those students who have shown already that they have an awareness and willingness to work on community initiatives, how can we be sure that that carries over into the work force when they become full-time employees? How can we help them understand the importance of continuing with that? We had one major goal – to bring to the students what we bring to the adult program – knowledge, hands-on experiences and access to other leaders, a network that would help them become and continue to be civic leaders. What we ended up with was a bigger picture – helping them understand the excitement of living (and working) in Rhode Island.
Q. How much of a role does ethics play in the curriculum, in light of recent scandals? How often does LRI update it?
A. We have absolutely talked about ethics in our program committee meetings; the program is designed by alumni. Our government day that was held in April … we had a panel discussion on ethics, the role of the Ethics Commission (and) looked at case studies. We weave that into every session day as well – the ethics that Rhode Island is talking about in terms of scandal but also the ethics of a good leader. What is a good public servant, what makes an ethical leader, what is ethical behavior, how do you manage yourself in an ethical way no matter what a commission says. Almost any time you ask someone to define a leader, they’re going to say that person is ethical or moral. We always design our curriculum to be up to the minute and focused on whatever is the current issue in that topic.
