Dear Friend,

Thank you for your commitment to our community and for the good work that you are doing to make it even better. You are being invited to apply for this Fellowship because of your important role in the community.

As our community matures there is a growing realization that we cannot do our business in the same siloed fashion to which we have become accustomed. We need to build the tissue of trust and connectivity between our organizations and within our organizations. As we extend the broad wings of our connectivity we discover novel and creative ways of addressing our community’s needs. As we deepen the level of our trust, we likewise enlarge our capacity for good work. We are more and more recognizing that the problems that face us cannot be solved in isolation. The issues of education require the assist of the other non-profit sectors as part of the solution. The same is true of each and every non-profit sector.

With this in mind, we formed the Jameson Fellowship to help connect, empower, and equip our community’s nonprofit leaders. We know how busy you all are doing important work in the community – and therefore this Fellowship is intended to help you build valuable relationships, connections and skills, while being respectful of your schedule. The structure will include a two-day (local) leadership lab, one-on-one coaching with a professional coach, and a series of workshops focused on critical topics that you will be able to shape during the two-day lab. I hope (and know) that you will come out of this experience feeling even more ready to take on our community’s challenges.

We will be suggesting in our lab and our work together that we can do “community” better in a model of Collective Impact. But, it requires a sincere intention to do so on the part of all the players. We need to support one another as we transition into such a way of interacting. The good news is that when the value of trust begins to permeate the culture, our work is better supported and better accomplished. Philanthropists are awaiting such a new culture of collaboration; the community is growing to expect such an approach to our issues.

As we prepare for the leadership lab and the camps to follow, we will be asking for your input and your sense of need. Those who live in Southern Nevada are proud to call it home. We each want to make our small contribution in providing a bridge of sustainability and excellence into the 21st century.

Professor of Asian Philosophy, UNLV