In 2002, the United Way of Sarasota County began a program to encourage diversity on local boards and committees. Subsequently, the Sarasota Herald Tribune considered replicating Focus on Leadership, a project sponsored by New York Times newspapers in Gainesville and Lakeland that inspired African-American community leadership through networking.  In 2003, United Way, the Herald Tribune, the Community Foundation of Sarasota Co. , USF and SCOPE collaborated to create the Grassroots Leadership Initiative which grew out of the two earlier efforts to engage community leaders.  

GLI is a free, year-long leadership development program that builds essential skills, mentoring and networking opportunities in grassroots from Sarasota and Manatee Counties.  Fellows also initiate community projects to address important issues and apply their skills to make a meaningful difference with other volunteers.  Twenty graduates are engaged in their respective communities where they are taking on more responsibilities and positions to help the Sarasota-Manatee area. 

Currently the 2008 class is completing their program year and recruiting has begun for the 2009 class.  What is unique about GLI are our participants called Fellows.    GLI Fellows are passionate about serving our community, yet are underrepresented in current leadership positions and operate outside the “executive board room”.  Rather their power lies in their places of worship, neighborhoods, and community-based organizations.  Through the Grassroots Leadership Initiative grassroots leaders are equipped with new skills and gain access to influential decision makers. As a community, we will realize our economic and creative potential when we broaden the public discourse.  Helping grassroots leaders helps all of us make better community decisions.  

Benefits to Our Community:

·         Leadership from unrepresented groups in local decision making. Nurturing and supporting grassroots leaders and their organizations are central to sustaining our democracy and to encouraging a healthy, vibrant community. The Grassroots Leadership Initiative offers an answer, a deliberate strategy for connecting people into a supportive foundation and empowering them to act on the behalf of the community. Grassroots leadership is a building block to community cohesion and mobilization, to community economic development and inclusion.

Meaningful solutions. Developing leaders from marginalized communities plays a critical role in connecting community needs to meaningful solutions. Grassroots leadership can expand existing coalitions by positively contributing to the problem-solving process in which job programs, health care, public education and civil rights flourish. Through this type of collaboration, new solutions emerge from the grassroots level.