Community Foundation’s Certificate Program Offered March 26-27, 2024

For the first time ever, the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys will hold its signature board member training program in Islamorada. The 2024 Leadership Success Academy will be held at the Islander Resort on Tuesday, March 26 and Wednesday, March 27. Registration is available online at cffk.org/LSA. The cost of the two-day program is $149 and includes lunch on both days and a graduation reception. The sessions will focus on leadership styles, board member roles, nonprofit finance, fundraising, communications, and strategic planning. Individuals who participate on both days will receive a Certificate of Completion.

A special addition this year will be a presentation from AH Monroe’s executive director Scott Pridgen and Florida Keys Outreach Coalition’s board chair Sam Kaufman, whose organizations merged effective January 1. They will explain the process their board of directors went through to make this happen, and how they weighed the pros and cons of their collaboration options, ultimately choosing a merger for the greater good of the community.

Since 2008, we have trained more than 600 nonprofit leaders from throughout the Keys from over 100 different nonprofits,” said Jennifer McComb, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys. “Board members who have completed our program have learned to ask more questions, think beyond the way things have always been done, and take steps to move the organizations they care about to the next level.”

The Community Foundation training which has historically been offered in Key West was expanded to Marathon in 2020 and Key Largo in 2022, McComb said. This will be the first time hosting it in Islamorada.

Coaches for the 2024 Leadership Success Academy include renowned nonprofit expert and consultant Alex Counts, who will be traveling from Baltimore to instruct our Florida Keys nonprofit leaders. Together with Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus, Counts co-founded the Grameen Foundation, a global nonprofit which has helped loan over 6.5 billion dollars to the poorest of the poor, while maintaining a repayment rate consistently above 98%. Counts is the author of three books and frequent contributor to The Washington Post, The Stanford Social Innovation Review, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Other 2024 presenters are Kate Banick, Robert S. Gold, and Martha Roesler.

For more information, visit cffk.org/LSA or contact Kevin Bowes at 305-809-4992.