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Whereas local communities form the foundation of our nation; Whereas qualified and well trained leadership of our local communities

Whereas, throughout local communities in the United States, helps sustain our democratic institutions;

community leadership programs have been instituted to identify and train citizens for leadership positions in their communities; and

Whereas hundreds of community leadership programs have produced thousands of talented and well trained local leaders who are aware

of the unique problems confronting their communities and can propose solutions to such problems: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the week beginning on September 9, 1984, is designated as “National Community Leadership Week,” and the President is authorized and requested

to issue a proclamation calling upon local communities and the people of the United States to observe such week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

Carl M. Moore is a professor of Speech Communication af Kent State University and M Associate of the Kenering Foundntion. He is a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Center of Cleveland State University and co-editor of the Community Leadership Depament of the NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW. Carl Moore is editor of the recently published book A Colorful Quilt: me Community Leadership Story. available from NACLO (members: $10, non-members: $15), 525 South Meridian Street, Suite 102, Indianapolis, IN 46225.

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Constructive ideas are useless unless they are spread, so let your colleagues know about the RJWIEWs pragmatic coverage of strategies for modern com- munity building and the National Civic League3 innovative services. They can use the convenient post-paid =ply cards provided in this issue to join today’s movement toward effective civic renewal.

Leadership Birmingham: Integration through Coalition Building

by SHEILA BLAIR

inningham, Alabama has suffered for most of its life from economic, B political and racial fragmentation. Founded after the Civil War as a center of iron and steel, Birmingham was known as the “Pittsburgh of the South,” its major industry owned in the Pittsburgh of the North, by United States Steel. Absentee ownership of the city’s major industry, as well as much of its land, made Birmingham a “company townm and the heavy industry that grew and prospered there did not see its well-being as having any particular connection with the well-being of the community in which it did business.

The physical environment of Birmingham further contributed to its fragmentation in that the city itself is in a long, narrow valley, with a series of ridges and valleys to the south. As suburbs developed, they did so “over the mountain,” which, over the years, became a euphemism for the detachment of the upper middle class and the economic leadership of the city.

Politically, Birmingham is “balkanized,” with 33 separately incorporated municipalities in an urban county of more than 800,000 people, but with a central city of only 250,000. Added to all this is the racial segregation that has continued to plague Birmingham, as the central city became increasingly black and the suburbs white. The trauma of the 1960s had brought the community’s leadership together to cope with the outbursts of violence and hatred that came to be known worldwide. But the crisis passed and although substantial progress had been made, there was still a long way to go.

By 1981, Birmingham was undergoing significant changes and crisis loomed once again. There had been, over the prior ten years, a gradual shift away from its industrial and manufacturing base. But only with massive layoffs at U.S. Steel and the closing of coal mines and related industrial plants did the community begin to come to grips with this shift. A thriving medical center and university complex had taken the place of steel as the city’s major employer

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(and indeed had become the hope of its future) but the image of Birmingham as a grimy, polluted steel town was hard to shake.

The image of Birmingham as a center of racial unrest was even harder to shake. There has long been a feeling on the part of both blacks and whites that the successes and strides of the past twenty years are almost obliterated by the memory of Sombingham” and the images of police dogs and fire hoses. And, in 1980, an unfortunate incident with the Birmingham Rotary Club brought world-wide publicity when a number of older white businessmen went on record as resisting the efforts of Rotary International to compel the local club to remove a ”whites only’’ stipulation from its bylaws.

Founding the Organization It became obvious to a growing number of people that Birmingham was

a city in transition. The fabric of the community was changing. Yet many of its most influential citizens were conducting business as usual. To at least one small group of men and women it was also obvious that many of the community’s leaders, while achieving remarkable success in their own fields, were getting farther and farther away from a sense of community, a feeling of connectedness, with either the community at large or with each other.

There has long been a feeling on the part of both blacks and whites that the successes and strides of the past twenty years are almost obliterated by the memory of “Bombingham” and the images of police dogs and fire hoses.

In 1981, James C. Lee, the president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, and Don Newton, the executive vice president, decided it was time to address the problem of Birmingham’s leadership. They chose exactly the right man to head the project, Dr. Neal R. Berte, president of Birmingham-Southern College. His assignment was to investigate leadership programs all over the country and from this research recommend a plan for

Berte knew he needed help in this effort. Consequently, he drew together a steering committee of nine people representing a wide variety of community interests. The group included men and women, blacks and whites. What they had in common was youth, energy, commitment to Birmingham, a vision

Birmingham.

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extending beyond "business as usual," and a willingness to devote large portions of their own time to developing that vision. And they had precisely the right leader in Berte, who possessed those qualities himself in abundance.

Meeting regularly for eight months, they reviewed material on leadership programs in Denver, Minneapolis, Memphis, Cincinnati, and Nashville. At the end of that time Berte's committee recommended that Birmingham develop a program modeled after Leadership Nashville because, more than any others, it seemed to address the weaknesses in Birmingham's current leadership. A whole generation of leadership had been "skipped" after the sixties and there were not many people ready to fill the shoes of older leaders as they retired from the scene. W e not critical of Birmingham's current leadership, the steering committee made it clear that 1) there were not sufficient numbers of emerging leaders, 2) the two most pressing community problems - the shift away from an industrial economy and solutions to racial problems - were not being addressed head-on, and 3) the network needed to be opened up.

Two aspects of Leadership Nashville made it just the right model for Birmingham: it was an inclusive program seeking participation from all segments of the community, and, although it was funded by the corporate sector, it remained independent of any umbrella organization.

In August 1982, the steering committee delivered to the Chamber policy committee a "white paper" outlining a leadership program for Birmingham. With the blessing of the Chamber and pledge of financial support from major corporations, Leadership Birmingham was incorporated in November, 1982.

Virtually all the decisions relative to the start-up of Leadership Birmingham were made by the steering committee. Their first major decision was the recruitment of a chairman for the new organization.. They al l agreed that this person needed a high level of community credibility, track record in fund-raising, and a name that was well known. He or she also had to be forward looking and willing to devote large amounts of time to making Leadership Birmingham work.

William J. Rushton, III, chairman and CEO of Protective Life Corporation, was their choice. A man who gave most of his time to running his business and had not, heretofore, been heavily involved in civic endeavors, Rushton said openly that Leadership Birmingham was for people like him who needed to become more knowledgeable in order to be more effective.

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The decision to found Leadership Birmingham as an independent institution meant the organization had to have its own policy-making body (a board of trustees), its own funding, and a full-time staff.

Thirty-five community leaders were recruited as board members by Rushton and the steering committee. A great deal of thought was given to the mix of people. Male, female, black, white, corporate, educational, governmental, religious, social service, labor, and professional people were sought. All who were asked accepted. No one questioned the concept of the program. It was agreed that the fragmentation that characterized Birmingham was counterproductive and that there was an urgency about bringing leaders together to consider the common good. Of the 35, 17 represented major corporations, who together contributed some $77,000 to fund the organization in its first year. From the steering committee, only Rushton and Berte were named to the board.

Again, following Nashville’s model, a full-time staff person was hired to move the organization forward on a daily basis. In November, 1982 Sheila Blair was hired to work with the steering committee to plan the program, recruit participants, develop community awareness, and generate publicity. She rented office space, worked with an attorney to secure 501(c)3 nonprofit status, hired a part-time secretary, and recruited a volunteer logistics committee. Blair had fifteen years experience with nonprofit organizations, was well known in the community, and had good communications skills. The steering committee respected her and accorded her the status of a peer, enabling her to effectively serve their needs on a daily basis.

Mission Initial policy for the organization was made by the steering committee,

although - once the board of trustees was in place - all policy decisions were ratified by the board. One of its most significant actions was to draw up a statement of purpose for the organization. It was deliberately kept simple: to bring together yearly a class of 40-45 community leaders for a series of educational seminars which would enable them to know more about their community and to h o w each other. No issues or causes beyond this would be espoused, nor would further programs or projects be undertaken. Firmness and clarity regarding the mission saved the organization from endless discussion in its formative stage when the many active and concerned individuals who either were part of the original steering committee, or close to it, presented the board with various worthy causes for its consideration. This has proved

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over the years to have been a wise decision, enabling the disparate constituencies to whom Leadership Birmingham appeals to find commonality in a simple yet vital purpose.

Program Just how to translate their ideas about leadership into an effective program

- even when they relied on the structure of an established program like Leadership Nashville - was a formidable challenge for the steering committee. Having no alumni who could be called upon to develop programs, having no committees in place to perform the functions of selection or public relations, and having no officers to raise funds and administer them, members of the steering committee decided to assume these responsibilities themselves.

The decision to found Leadership Birmingham as an indepen- dent institution meant the oqpnization had to have ikr own policy- making body (a board of trustees), its own funding, and a full- time staff.

One of the first things the committee did was to assign responsibility for program days to its members. Having earlier decided to follow the Nashville model of nine program sessions - two two-day retreats and seven 14-hour days - attention could be focussed on issues of concern to the community, criteria for selecting topics for program days, and which individuals would chair which days. Community advisory committees were convened to help plan each session, though care was taken to keep the authority for final program content firmly within the steering committee. For three months in the spring of 1983, advisory committees discussed such topics as education, criminal justice, human services, and government, as committee members struggled to determine the form and content of the sessions. Beginning that June, the steering committee assumed the role of program committee and met weekly throughout the summer, hammering out final agenda for each session. By the end of the summer, programs were in place and the first year was ready to begin.

Running concurrently with program planning was the selection process, also overseen by the steering committee. In April a brochure was sent out to some 1,500 individuals in the community. As a result of this effort, coupled with extensive newspaper publicity and substantial personal recruitment in the

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corporate sector, some 300 names were received in nomination and 169 individuals applied for the program. The steering committee developed selection criteria and identified certain individuals who should be targeted, that is, personally encouraged to apply. CEOs and presidents were personally recruited by the chairman. When the process had ended in June, 1983, the “first forty” included corporate leaders, the president of a coalition of low-income neighborhoods, and the president of the county medical society, among others.

The steering committee decided to split into two groups, six members participating the first year, and five the next. Also included in the first class were seven members of the board of trustees. The composition of the first class was, therefore, a clear statement to the Birmingham community that this was a program designed for the highest level of leadership, and the fact that so many availed themselves of the opportunity spoke well for it.

The Program h y s On September 30, 1983, the first Leadership Birmingham class met for the

first time, leaving Birmingham after breakfast for two days at a rustic lodge 90 miles southeast of the city. The theme selected for the retreat was “Birmingham’s Image: Myth or Reality?” The sessions were intended to provoke discussion of the role that perception, both internal and external, plays in a community’s ability to move forward.

The date of the retreat coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Birmingham church bombings. The lead speaker of the afternoon was Charles Morgan, a white attorney who had left Birmingham in bitterness during the sixties and had written strongly negative things about the city. Although Morgan’s charge was to speak about the view that outsiders have of Birmingham, both circumstances and his own inclinations led him to focus on the race problems of the sixties. The subject of race is such a powerful one that it dominated the entire retreat; indeed, it became a subject that permeated much of Leadership Birmingham’s programming from that time forward. The introduction of such strong material so early in the program sent the message to participants - and through them to the many sectors of the community they represented - that Leadership Birmingham meant what it said when it claimed its programs would “dig beneath the surface.“

As the program year unfolded, with each month’s program day chaired and led by one of the steering-committee members, it became clear that Leadership Birmingham was receiving a positive response from both the participants and

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the community at large. When the nomination/application process opened in April, 1984, numbers were up dramatically: 450 nominations and 214 applications.

Steering committee members, aware that all their planning and orchestration of people and events was paying off, faced the problem of turning over the baton. Consensus was quickly reached that it was too soon for them to step back and relinquish control of the program. The solution for the second year was to increase committee membership from 11 to 20 (the maximum allowed in the bylaws) and to use the nine new members as program day chairs. For at least one more year the steering and program committees would be one in the same. The difference this year was that the program day chairs, all of whom came from the first class, sought advisors and helpers not from the community at large but from among their classmates.

Firmness and clarity regarding the mission saved the organiza- tion from endless discussion in its formative stage.. .

Once again the program committee met weekly throughout the summer, hammering out details of each program day and once again by the end of August, a year’s programs were in place. The elements of programming, then as now, remained the same: no holds-barred consideration of Birmingham’s toughest problems, bringing in key decision makers to discuss the problems and issues, and taking the class to sites where the action relative to given issues takes place. Visitors and press are barred. Days operate with clock-like precision, with a total of 20-25 speakers in 12-15 separate sessions during the day. In a given session, half the time is devoted to presentation and half to questions and answers. Panels are generally limited to four people who are given eight minutes each for presentation.

What changes from year to year are the specific issues covered, the people selected to speak about those issues, and the places visited. Each year, day chairpersons - still chosen from the prior year’s graduates but no longer members of the steering committee - think first of the issues they want to include, and then of adapting the prior year’s programming to deal with those issues. Frequently, speakers are asked to repeat a session. Just as frequently, they are replaced by speakers on different or more current issues. What remains constant is the emphasis on inquiry from the participants. Each session is

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evaluated by the participants in writing immediately after the day is over. Responses are open-ended, yielding a wealth of narrative commentary on every presentation. These narratives serve to guide program planners for the following year, and provide the grist for a monthly Group” letter from the executive director which has become the organization’s house organ. Program planning still takes place during a ten-week period in the summer; more than one program planner has said that participating in the summer meetings is more educational than going through the program itself.

Study Groups Running concurrently with the nine program days are smaller study groups,

each assigned a topic to investigate and report on at the closing retreat. The purpose is not only to generate in-house reports but to enable people to come together in smaller groups, in order to better know one another. Groups meet at a time of their choosing, usually once a month.

Study groups have evolved in their focus over the four years of the program’s existence. Frustration ran high the first year, not only because the participants did not understand what was expected of them, but because the assignment to study a given topic was given so early in the year that it blocked the formation of personal ties that was one of the objectives of the groups. Beginning in the fall of 1984, groups were advised to meet in the evenings in members’ homes whenever possible. Their charge for the first four months was simply to review the program days, giving individuals an opportunity to voice their opinions of the sessions in a more comfortable, intimate setting. In January, each group was assigned a topic.

Reports at the closing retreat have varied over the years. Some groups focus on the development of their relationships with each other and give short shrift to the development of a report. Others, with a high degree of merriment and inventiveness, produce reports that are worthy of off-Broadway production.

The Caucus A highlight of every program day is the hour at the end of the day called

the caucus. It is presided over by Odessa Woolfolk, Director of the Center for Urban Affairs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and one of the original 11 steering-committee members. Wwlfolk served as program chairperson for the first two years of the program, and was one of the principal architects of the unique blend of information, inquiry, and issues that has become the hallmark of the program days. A political scientist by training,

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this former high school teacher and civil rights worker brings to her position a wide-ranging knowledge of community affairs, a willingness to be confrontational, a warm personality, and an abundance of good humor. She has attended every session of every program day since the program began and imbues the caucus with tough-minded sensitivity.

Woolfolk invents hypothetical situations; she questions, probes, and, on occasion, she needles. Those who try to dominate the discussion get a firm but kind hand on the shoulder; those who are reticent get called on at the slightest indication they wish to speak. In the course of such sessions, fur may fly and tears may flow. A newspaper editor takes furious exception to the ”media bashing” that occurred in an afternoon panel; a single parent lashes out at a minister who sees “broken homes” as the source of society’s ills. A black neighborhood leader tearfully shouts at a black business leader that he doesn’t understand the needs of the poor. More often, however, people simply speak what is on their minds, with a quiet that can be more compelling than anger. A surgeon describes sewing up victims of violent crime, an educator confesses that he thinks rock music is the source of young people’s problems, a bank president admits to holding back his remarks “for fear of being thought a racist.” A Baptist minister reacts to the comments of a rabbi during a panel discussion on the role of organized religion; he says he had never heard anyone say in public before that he did not believe in Christ, and never intended to. Not everyone speaks during the caucus, but everyone listens. Some of the most lasting memories that participants have of their year in Leadership Birmingham are of the caucuses.

Results It is only fair to ask what is happening in Birmingham as a result of

Leadership Birmingham’s existence. Answers involve four related but discrete areas: development of projects, the contributions of alumni as a body of concerned citizens, institution of a mechanism for continued learning and networking, and the formation of ad hoc groups around issues of importance to the community. A fifth area - perhaps the most important but the most difficult to measure - is the impact of the program on individuals.

Projects: Although the mission statement of the organization clearly describes Leadership Birmingham as a single-purpose enterprise, alumni of the class of 1984 became intrigued with the notion of extending the concept of Leadership Birmingham to the high school level. Their study of the schools in the Birmingham area revealed that students were becoming, early in life,

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locked into their own groups and individual communities. There was little or no communication between students in black schools on the west side of the city and students in white suburban schools, or between schools in the rural area of North Jefferson County and the private and parochial schools that educate a significant number of Birmingham children, both white and black. Youth Leadership Forum, a program for high school sophomores and juniors patterned on Leadership Birmingham, was a result of the efforts. After a year of operating on foundation grants, it became a part of the Leadership Birmingham organization and began receiving a yearly allocation from it. It has been as well-received in the community as the parent program and is currently co-sponsored by the Junior League, Birmingham-Southern College, the city of Birmingham, and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.

A second project emanating from the first class was the Birmingham Partnership, a program matching blacks and whites in one-on-one relationships. It began with six alumni and a mailing list. Less structured than the Youth Leadership Forum, the outcome of this effort is harder to measure. Individuals who have participated have expressed enthusiasm for its concept, but the very looseness of the enterprise makes it difficult to determine if it will be carried forward by other people in the future. To date, some 210 partnerships have been formed and the response of each year's partners in suggesting names for the next year's group indicates that it is striking a responsive chord in those who participate.

Concerned citizens: The alumni of Leadership Birmingham provide a core of interested, educated individuals upon whom outside groups can depend for input on a variety of topics. At least two requests have resulted in gatherings of note. In 1986, the Alabama Commission on Higher Education sought opinions across the state relative to the development of a plan for public higher education within the state. Leadership Birmingham brought together a diverse but representative group of alumni who responded to the call and met for a three-hour session with the commission's consultant. An even more notable event took place in January of 1987, when, to nearly everyone's surprise, a Republican governor was elected in Alabama. Responding to a call for help from state leaders, Leadership Birmingham alumni, with the help of Binningham-Southern College and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, put together a four-hour seminar for the governor, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, and key aides and officials. Some 120 alumni and current participants attended; materials were prepared on the need for economic development and enhanced state revenues. As events unfold within the state

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along these two lines, alumni can see the results of their input in the activities of state government.

Continued learning and neiworking: The Leadership Birmingham Alumni Association is the vehicle by which individual alumni can continue the involvement that they began as participants. Mindful of the fact that the mere existence of another organization in the community does not signal success, alumni have been slow to build structure. Indeed, not until a critical mass of 135 alumni was in place, did alumni actually organize into a group with a mission statement, committees, bylaws, and a governing body.

~~~~~ ~ ~

The alumni of Leadership Birmingham provide a core of interested, educated individuals upon whom outside groups can depend for input on a variety of topics.

Some tension exists between those alumni who measure the impact of the Leadership Birmingham experience by attendance at Alumni Association functions and those who feel that the true impact of the program is to be found in the changed behavior of individual leaders. Both positions seem valid ones. As time goes on, it would appear that the CEOs of major corporations and other individuals whose time is heavily committed to their own leadership responsibilities are less likely to attend alumni functions or participate in alumni activities. Ludividual activity by these same people, however, reveals the impact of the program. Two examples are worthy of note. At a recent meeting to launch the initiation of Samford University’s Public Affairs Research Council, university president Thomas Corts said the need for such a council had become clear to him during his year as a participant in Leadership Birmingham. In addition, the chairman of Sonat Inc., Ronald L. Kuehn, Jr., established a comprehensive program of corporate volunteerism and a new position of vice president for community affairs after his participation in the program.

Over the past three years there have been social events, seminars on transportation and education, a periodic newsletter, and a simple alumni directory. Regular gatherings will take place next year as alumni seek to use their network of contacts to develop new civic agenda. A more complete directory will be published so that alumni can connect easily across class lines. The same kind of energy that went into forming Leadership Birmingham is

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emerging as alumni come together in the knowledge that it is what happens after their year of participation that is really important.

Ad Hoc Groups: Several ad hoc groups have come together for specific purposes, convened by alumni who have seen the value of dialogue among diverse groups. One of the most successful was a group called Nexus, convened by the president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce in 1984, shortly after he finished participating in Leadership Birmingham. It was a loosely-knit group of public and private sector representatives, including the city's principal urban designer, the director of the county's community development department, the chairman of a major bank, the president of a consulting firm, and the director of a downtowndevelopment organization, among others. Its primary function was to serve as a think tank and support group for the individuals in it, cutting through bureaucracy and opening up communication on a variety of issues.

A second ad hoc group has been organized by Neal Berte to investigate the possibilities for cooperation among the many local governments within Jefferson County. Leadership Birmingham alumni joined with the Center for Urban Affairs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham-Southern College, and the Chamber in conducting a survey of all mayors and city council presidents in the area - some 65 individuals in all - to determine what, if any, governmental services might appropriately be consolidated. At the present time, there appear to be some possibilities in the area of business licensing, and work is currently proceeding along those lines.

Zmpnct on individzds: Perhaps more than any other outcome, the true test of Leadership Birmingham's effectiveness is the behavior of those leaders who have gone through the program. In the fall of 1987, students in a senior honors seminar at Birmingham-Southem College conducted an extensive leadership study aimed at assessing the impact of Leadership Birmingham on participants. A questionnaire was sent to over 500 community leaders. The survey was coded so that attitudinal differences between leadership Birmingham alumni and other community leaders could be measured. The return rate was high, allowing the students to analyze 272 completed surveys. As reflected in the questionnaire results, Leadership Birmingham graduates tend to take the following positions:

They are committed to an "open community."

Their style of leadership is equally open and participatory in nature.

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0 They tend to be more tolerant of public officials than is the sample as

0 They have a real concern about the arts and the overall quality of life.

0 On those issues where the question of race is raised, Leadership

a whale.

Birmingham alumni are more likely to be progressive in their attitudes.

Perhaps more than any other outcome, the true test of Leader- ship Birmingham’s effectiveness is the behavior of those leaders who have gone through the program.

Perhaps the most significant finding has to do with commitment to community service. Respondents were asked to indicate the number of hours per month devoted to community activities. Thmy-nine percent of Leadership Birmingham alumni claimed that they spent more than 16 hours a month in this way prior to 1980. That percentage jumped to 61% for 1987. (The percentage of other community leaders spending more than 16 hours a month increased over the same time period from 34% to 42%.)

Analysis It seems clear from the foregoing that in its four years of existence

Leadership Birmingham has met the goals of its founders. With a basic structure that is by no means unique, four features of the Birmingham experience seem noteworthy: 1) the urgency of community conditions at the time the program was formed, 2) the degree of support, both initial and continuing, from the corporate sector, 3) the energy and intensity of the founders, and 4) the caliber of the leaders who are participants in the program. Analysis of the Birmingham experience suggests some further reasons for the success of the program. These include the support of the press, incorporation as an independent, nonprofit organization, the hiring of full-time staff with experience in community and volunteer work, and a fluid organizational structure which allowed the continued involvement of the original steering committee.

Conclusion Just as the above factors have been at work in enabling Leadership

Birmingham to move forward efficiently from conceptual fledghg organization to effective program, there are some concerns for the future which the