Deadline: 31-Aug-21
Applications are now open for the Rising Leaders Fellowship, a one-year intensive leadership development initiative for BIPOC faith leaders involved in spiritually grounded justice efforts.
The fellowship aims to impact the ecosystem of the movement for justice by building a resilient network of faith leaders of color who act as the “lungs” of their faith and ethnic communities, while building a community of emerging faith leaders of color that remain connected into the future.
The Rising Leaders Fellowship will engage BIPOC millennial and Gen Z leaders with Sojourners’ faith-rooted advocacy and mobilizing initiatives as well as Sojourners magazine and online publication. Sojourners seeks to build hope and create positive change that impacts individuals, communities, the church, and the world. Through the Rising Leaders Fellowship, Sojourners will sow into future mobilization efforts and add capacity to the field by training and supporting leaders in the movement.
The fellowship is designed to foster relational resiliency and will be structured around three areas of development: relationship with self, organizational change, and movement building. Through facilitated sessions and practices the cohort will learn skills that will help them thrive amid trauma and chaos in each of these three domains of leadership.
Core experiences to develop relational resilience will include vocational self-assessments, emotional awareness exercises, emotional regulation practices, and family systems theory applied to organizations. They will also touch on adaptive leadership as a method of engaging with an ever-changing world.
Program Elements
The fellowship is designed to address three domains of leadership: relationship with self, organizational change, and movement building.
- Monthly support cohort meetings: Once a month they will gather for a training and reflection time that will incorporate embodied spiritual practices.
- Mentorship: Elders and community leaders will be available for consulting with small mentoring groups during the last three months of the program.
- Retreats: An opening and closing retreat will mark their journey together.
- Mini-grants: In the fall, each fellow will be invited to apply for a mini-grant of up to $5,000 to accelerate their justice work.
- Soul care grants: Each fellow can request up to $1,500 for soul care funds during the program.
- Communal project grant: The last three months of the program, fellows will decide how to spend a communal project grant to enhance their fellowship experience.
Benefits
The Rising Leaders Fellowship is a one-year intensive leadership development initiative for BIPOC faith leaders involved in spiritually grounded justice efforts. The fellowship will:
- Impact the ecosystem of the movement for justice by building a resilient, relational, and covenanted network of faith leaders of color who act as the “lungs” of their faith and ethnic communities.
- Build a network of emerging faith leaders of color that will remain connected into the future.
What is required to apply for a fellowship?
- The application consists of five main sections: general information, vocation and community, leadership journey, faith journey, and program details. The application is designed to help them get to know you and the breadth of your work and vision. Their goal is to create an interfaith network and community that will stay connected beyond the fellowship.
For more information, visit https://risingleaders.life/