Application for 4th (2009-2010) Cohort

The application for the 4th Cohort will be circulated and posted here in late spring 2008. The selected cohort is expected to begin workshops in February 2009.

The Fellowship came along during a time in my professional life when I badly needed two things. First, I needed better tools for tackling the baffling problems that fall under the name "sustainability". Second, I needed a network of like-minded professionals from outside my own organization, to give me perspective and strength for dealing with the sometimes-overwhelming work that we try to do every day.

The Fellowship has fulfilled and surpassed my expectations. The staff at SI and the other Fellows help to remind me that the work we do is essential; that it is possible; and that it can be fun, absorbing, and inspiring, both by nature of the complexity of the problems we face and the amazing people who populate the sustainability movement.

— Christina Page, Rocky Mountain Institute, Snowmass, CO

Read more testimonials from past Fellows.

Application Description

The Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program was launched in 2002 to honor and build on the life example of Dr. Donella Meadows by empowering sustainability leaders to incorporate systems thinking, reflective conversation and vision into their work and life.  The Fellows Program seeks to enhance the effectiveness of people whose approach to sustainability displays analytic clarity, systemic change, and attention to spirit, values, and meaning.  Making the shift to a sustainable society involves changing complex environmental, social, and economic systems.  This is a challenge that requires strategic analysis and action coupled with excellent interpersonal and leadership skills.  Donella's system tools enabled her to see clearly the root causes of seemingly intractable problems – poverty, war, environmental degradation – and her deep affection for people and the earth gave her a unique power to reach others.

The Fellowship integrates rigorous systems analysis with skill in articulating feelings, values, and vision because we believe that people with this combination of talents, like Donella, are deeply needed in the world.  About two-thirds of the class will be women in order to enhance the number and effectiveness of women sustainability leaders.

The Fellows Program trains sixteen to twenty influential mid-career environmental and social leaders in a series of four workshops and monthly personal coaching.  Fellows learn systems skills: seeing the world through a systems lens, drawing and interpreting systems diagrams, analyzing the drivers of sustainability and the system rules and incentives that give rise to sustainability. Fellows complement this rigorous analytical work with skills that are critical for leading change in systems with diverse goals and stakeholders, such as visioning, inquiry, and personal reflection.  Coaching focuses on Fellows' on-going application of the newly-acquired tools in their work.  Skill development includes systems thinking, reflective conversation, vision, personal mastery, and leadership for sustainability.

Selected Fellows will be drawn from the NGO, government, philanthropy, business, tribal, and policy sectors. Criteria for selecting Fellows include a deep desire to shift the world to global sustainability, aptitude to learn and apply systems thinking, the ability to apply learning organization methodology to one's work and home institutions, a commitment to personal reflection and growth, demonstrated leadership ability, and the potential to influence thinking in wide circles of people.

We design each workshop to respond to the current work of the Fellows, to needs emerging during coaching, to new insights from coaches, and to callings of the world at that time. The coaches actively seek their own continued leadership development and count among our primary teachers Donella Meadows, Peter Senge, Joanna Macy, John Sterman, Robert Gass, Rockwood Institute, The Vermont Leadership Initiative and the Legacy Center.

Logistics: Four 4-day workshops will be held at the Cobb Hill Cohousing community that Donella co-founded in Hartland, Vermont.

Attendance at all four workshops, participation in periodic coaching telephone conferences, and completion of exercises between workshops is mandatory. Please do not apply if you cannot make all four workshops.

Cost:  Travel expenses, plus $600 per 4-day workshop ($600 in 2007, $1800 in 2008) to cover meals, lodging, venue and materials. Scholarships are available. Sustainability Institute provides all workshop coordination, design, curriculum and delivery.

Applicants should be active practitioners in their field; applicants who are primarily students, teachers or researchers will not be accepted. This is not a train-the-trainer program; it is designed to give hands-on sustainability leaders tools to be more effective.

See also

Questions?  Contact Daniella Malin at daniella@sustainer.org and cc: Edie Farwell at efarwell@sustainer.org.

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