April 2006 Convening

April 24 and 25, Chicago, IL – We started our pilot year with two main goals: 1) documenting the original curriculum of the original Institutes; 2) supporting partner sites in launching Institutes of their own.

After the Civic Leadership Network Institutes were successfully adapted and launched in Denver (Fall '05, Spring '06), Boston (Spring '06) and Atlanta (Spring '06), our peer network of labor and community leaders, lead staff and academic partners came together in Chicago to learn from the experience of each site of our pilot year.

This convening drew together clusters of leaders from each of our partner sites as well as from our original co-sponsoring organizations: Working Partnerships USA and SCOPE-LA. Together, we worked to:

• improve the core curriculum of the Institutes (CLNI)
• introduce new curriculum topics focused on strategic organizing and electoral strategies
• discuss and generate feedback on how to use technology to support the exchange of information, expertise and trainings through a secure intranet
• continue to deepen the peer-to-peer network of regionally based organizations that are emerging centers for organizing, research and policy analysis

Some of the most inspiring testimonies that were given at the evaluation session at the end of day 2 expressed the hope and belief that our collective work will generate a concrete agenda that produces real benefits for working communities across the country.