Creating spaces for dialogue and learning to build collective empowerment: A qualitative study on community leadership development in Midwest America communities

Wilson Majee, Ifeolu David, Sarah Hultine Massengale, Claire Wolff Rippel, Dwayne James, Tasnim Haq and Anna Russell

Community Development, 2025, vol. 56, issue 3, 376-393

Abstract: The complexity of today’s community challenges calls for innovative approaches that promote leadership of diverse community members and institutions working collaboratively with communities. This study reports on an evaluation of two neighborhood leadership development programs that examined the impact of programs on participants and their communities. 41 interviews were conducted with 33 program participants and eight facilitators. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants expressed that they were motivated to participate in the leadership program(s) because they saw the need to help others in their communities and wanted to learn how to do that well. Others reported scaling up their capacity and capabilities in doing community work through engaging and empowering others toward achieving shared community development goals. Insights from the study suggest that building communities that are well resourced, equitable, and thriving places, require sustainable investment in hands-on, relational leadership training at the local level.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15575330.2024.2411733 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:comdev:v:56:y:2025:i:3:p:376-393

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCOD20

DOI: 10.1080/15575330.2024.2411733

Access Statistics for this article

Community Development is currently edited by John Green, Rhonda Phillips and Anne Heinze Silvis

More articles in Community Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().