Last year, the CCT’s work gained global notice, being highlight
ed in a British Social Enterprise Journal. And now, it has been invited to become a Leadership Foundation. What is a Leadership Foundation? Well, in nearly 30 countries and 70 cities we are doing three things: 1) Working with people of good faith and good will on ventures to accomplish community transformation. 2) Investing in building the capacity of other organizations to accomplish change. And 3) Engaging in joint initiatives that achieve what would be too large or complex for any one organization. This is one more step in the CCT taking its place as a permanent force for good in our community.
Here are some ways we hope to live this out in the coming days – sort of a CCT 2.0:
We are launching new Spanish-speaking initiatives, including Fe y Finanzas: financial literacy training in Spanish to enhance the capacity of rural leaders and institutions to help people in financial crisis, and our Certificado: our year-long certificate in leadership delivered in Spanish, ramping up to a broader audience, enhancing the capacity of institutions to pursue joint initiatives with local civic leaders on neighborhood project.
We are facilitating stronger relationship with the City of Fresno in terms of mobilizing and utilizing the assets and resources of the faith community – working with people of good faith and good will on specific projects that accomplish community objectives, whether that’s in the areas of homelessness, violence mediation, employment, housing, any number of issues. We may have an announcement on this in the near future.
We are launching new joint initiatives, including, Asset Based Community Development Training city-wide with Every Neighborhood Partnership & Fresno Metro Ministries. Including #SoEnt: A social enterprise training event aimed at students in partnership with the FPU School of Business & CCT. Business students will intern with social enterprises, go to our business plan workshop, Spark Tank, and accelerator to start their own business, volunteer at the Certificado program, and be our allies in the F&F classes.
We will see growth in all of our barrier-reducing programs to equip our most vulnerable neighbors, including Faith & Finances in every concentrated poverty neighborhood, GED Study Club in every concentrated poverty neighborhood, and a Work Life Course in every concentrated poverty neighborhood
Finally, and perhaps most significantly our social Enterprise Academy — the first of its kind in the Valley. This will train under-resourced individuals creating a self-employment opportunity as well as jobs for their neighbors. It will also equip large social enterprises in Fresno to tackle larger social challenges by non-charity means. This is a good example of something that can only be done as a joint initiative, in a cooperative environment with academic and civic institutions up and down the valley. The Social Enterprise Academy will be ten weeks long and launches in fall 2017.
