Social Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Leadership Programs
The Phoenix Project designs innovative nonprofit leadership and social entrepreneurship development programs for undergraduate, graduate and high school students throughout Virginia. In our flagship Nonprofit Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship Program (“NLP”), undergraduate and graduate students simultaneously learn the challenges facing economically-distressed communities, provide capacity building services to organizations serving those communities, and develop the relationships, knowledge and courage to become Virginia’s next generation of social entrepreneurs.
The Phoenix Project’s educational model is innovative in several ways. It combines intense classroom learning with equally challenging on-the-ground experience, engaging students in the powerful context of a severely economically-distressed community. This process couples a comprehensive curriculum in nonprofit management with new theories of leadership and social entrepreneurship lessons drawn heavily from the private and public sectors. Drawing students from across the Commonwealth, the NLP is the first of its kind in Virginia and the nation.
The Phoenix Project’s Nonprofit Leadership Program meets both short term and long term needs. In the short term, distressed communities need additional capacity in their nonprofit and municipal sectors to respond to opportunities for revitalization. In the long term, Virginia needs a new generation of highly skilled nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs (defined as leaders who can apply entrepreneurial principles to civic challenges through the nonprofit, public and private sectors) who will ensure that Virginians in all regions can realize the promise of the Commonwealth.
Another way the Phoenix Project is accelerating social entrepreneurship in Virginia is by hosting a conference series for stakeholders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors to exchange best practices and expand the dialogue about social entrepreneurship in the Commonwealth. Our first conference was held in July 2007 with Governor Mark Warner moderating a panel of leading scholars in the field. Our second event took place March 19, 2008 in Richmond and featured Governor Tim Kaine, Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, social entrepreneur Jim Ukrop, Dr. Greg Dees of Duke University and Dr. Diana Wells of Ashoka.