I just returned from Fargo, North Dakota, where we are launching a two-year large scale capacity building effort that aims to transform the state’s nonprofit sector.

We’ll be leading capacity building workshops, board development trainings, and board assessments – for cohorts of our proven Leadership Advanced executive development program, here to be called Leadership Advanced North Dakota (LAND). The program is sponsored by the Impact Foundation, with major funding from the Bush Foundation in Minneapolis.

This was my first trip to North Dakota – in February – and I found it a stunning, cold, beautiful place of wide open vistas, full of dedicated people who are willing to take big risks to get things done. North Dakota is a large land mass, but has only 600,000 people, and most of the state has fewer than 6 people per square mile.

The challenge of meeting the needs of an aging population in a rural context will be daunting, but with the partners we have, and the resources committed to the effort, we are excited about the possibilities for developing a new model for nonprofit capacity building. Stay tuned.

Tags: nonprofit

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Consulting for Nonprofits, Governance, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.