Community Leadership: What Does it Take to See Results? Open Access

If your community is looking for more committed and competent leaders, what type of educational intervention will get the best results? U-Lead, the University of Minnesota Extension’s community leadership program, engages with organizations and communities to strengthen leadership. As the educational provider of U-Lead, Extension has a responsibility to provide quality programs as well as honor time and resource constraints. The primary question of this study is: what impact, if any, does the program duration have on participant outcomes? Key Observations include (a) the longest duration programs consistently had the most improvements in skills and knowledge, (b) after completing programs, more people are committing to leadership positions. This does not appear to correlate to program duration, (c) using evaluation data for modifying programs and starting additional programs leads to more significant participant change, and (d) community leadership theory and measurement can lead to better programs with greater results.