Doing Good, Living Well

Community Leadership Workshop offers students necessary skills to enter non-profit sector

During this past academic year, Kyle Boudreau ’10 worked at the South Worcester Neighborhood Center, a non-profit organization located less than a mile away from campus. He learned the ins and outs of the organization — helping to write grants, providing food pantry assistance and teaching a youth leadership class once a week at South High School.

Boudreau, from Bridgewater, who is a political science major with a Peace and Conflict Studies concentration, also discovered something else: he found the work to be deeply rewarding and engaging.

For that reason, he signed up to take part in the second annual Community Leadership Workshop held at Holy Cross from May 12 to 16. The workshop, designed for students seeking careers in non-profits, community work, activism, and social change, is an intensive one-week immersion in understanding all facets of a non-profit organization: how to start one up, take it to the next level, and sustain its momentum.

Students get real-life non-profit experience through simulations, case studies, team projects and presentations. The rigorous program — conducted entirely by Holy Cross alumni working in various areas of non-profit organizations across the world — is available on an application-acceptance basis, and is free of charge.

The creation of the workshop was a no-brainer for Holy Cross, which has long prided itself on a commitment to service of faith and promotion of justice. Richard Matlak, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies (CISS), and Tom Landy, director of the Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative, were involved in the planning of the Executive Leadership Workshop run by the Ciocca Office of Entrepreneurial Studies, which focuses on the nuts and bolts behind establishing and running a successful business. They wanted to create a program for students interested in working in the non-profit sector.

“One of the things that we kept hearing from students is that they love volunteering, but that they and their parents were concerned whether they could turn this passion into a viable career,” says Landy. “They didn’t know what organizations they were best suited for, nor did they know the vast areas they could enter in the non-profit world, ranging from hunger to housing to education.”

Housed under CISS’ Community-Based Learning Office— and fueled by the enthusiasm and commitment from director Margaret A. Post — participating students are able to augment the skills that they learn in and out of the classroom through this workshop.

“The workshop provides an opportunity for students to discern tangible ways to live out their desire to make a difference in the world,” says Post.

At the beginning of the week, alumni present students with real-life challenges that they currently face at their organization. Students conduct extensive research and interview employees at the organizations before developing solutions for each of the problems. By the end of the week, the students present their solutions before a board of alumni.

This year’s alumni participants included Pat Clancy ’68, president and chief executive officer of the Community Builders, Inc.; Nancy Delaney '76, Oxfam America’s Fast and Outreach Manager; Frank Kartheiser ’72, director of Worcester Interfaith; Marybeth Kearns-Barrett '84, associate chaplain and director of service and social justice at Holy Cross; and Ben Ticho ’68, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Mass/Metrowest.

“What distinguishes this program is that the problems that students are presented early in the week are not make believe. They are real problems. With their imaginations, and their experience — from Student Programs for Urban Development, summer internships, and other co-curricular activities — they have a feel for this type of work already,” says Matlak, who says the program is one of the few of its kind in the nation.

Julianna Stuart ’10, from Storrs, Conn., a religious studies major with a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies, participated in the workshop because she has an interest in different types of social justice and public interest work. One part of the workshop allowed her to explore organizations that focus on conflict mediation and the different types of career opportunities that exist in that field.

“One of the most important things I got out of the workshop,” she says, “was a much better grasp on how to gauge what is available and how to use different tools — on and offline. This workshop allows people with broad interests, such as myself, to see the many jobs, internships, fellowships and range of other opportunities that are available.”

For Boudreau, the workshop has helped augment the skills he is gaining from other cocirricular activities. This summer he will intern at Jeremiah’s Inn, a shelter in Worcester, and in the fall he will intern with the National Coalition for the Homeless, learning how homelessness is fought at the national level. He is also an active member of Student Programs for Urban Development and the Student Government Association Class of 2010 Community Committee. His career goal is to work for a non-profit, tackling homelessness in an urban area.

He says: “These experiences combined with the information provided from the Community Leadership Workshop will go a long way to helping me to discern my future vocation in the non-profit sector.”

Related Information:

• Community-Based Learning
• Read a profile on Margaret Post, the new director of Community-Based Learning