OUR PROGRAMS
LEAD
Changing how emerging leaders understand power, equity, and community transformation through real paid work experience, intentional programming, and relationships that grow with them.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Real roles. Weekly curriculum. A network built to last.
Each summer, a cohort of college students joins LEAD through paid positions at foundations, nonprofits, and mission-driven companies across Chicagoland. Each student is hired directly by a participating host organization, and LEAD is the experience that wraps around the role.
Through weekly CAFE-led workshops and events on leadership, identity, equity, and the systems that shape opportunity, students build community across organizations and develop a shared framework for how they show up in the world. And the program doesn't end when summer does. LEAD is building an ecosystem of alumni mentors and organizational partners that extends well beyond any single cohort.
We support students where they are, meeting them with care and centering them in community, while offering host organizations a high-quality structure for mentoring rising talent.
THE LEAD EXPERIENCE
What LEAD looks like
Intentional Curriculum
A weekly CAFE-led series on leadership, identity, and equity in practice. Students build shared language, ask hard questions about how power moves, and develop a framework for how they show up in the sector and beyond it.
Belonging and Community
LEAD centers students and managers in community from day one. Across organizations and backgrounds, the cohort becomes a space where people can show up fully.
A Network That Grows
Students connect with peers, mentors, and sector leaders across Chicagoland. These relationships deepen over time, across cohorts, and into whatever comes next.
At the end of their LEAD summer, interns leave with real-world experience in social impact settings, a deeper understanding of how power and purpose connect, confidence navigating professional spaces, and a network to grow with professionally and personally.
WHY IT MATTERS
Access to leadership and influence still flows through long-established networks.
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LEAD's purpose is not to turn students into grantmakers. It's to expand who gets to shape the sector's future and to ensure they're supported with the relationships, tools, and language to do it well.
PARTNER WITH US
LEAD grows because people invest in what works.
Your support funds student stipends, underwrites program costs, and helps us scale what's possible for students and mission-driven organizations alike. Whether you're a funder, a prospective host organization, or someone who believes in building the sector's next generation of leaders, we want to connect.