The Neighborhood Leadership Academy connects resources at the University - Creating Whole Communities and University of Missouri Extension - with neighborhood leaders from across the state of Missouri to learn together through a virtual or in-person project-based curriculum, developing the skills and building the networks necessary to create healthy, vibrant and whole communities.
The Neighborhood Leadership Academy (NLA) provides in-depth and multifaceted leadership training that emphasizes community building principles and strategies, project planning, organizational leadership and management practices, and personal leadership skills.
Participants are actively involved in their neighborhoods and represent communities throughout Missouri. Academy participants may be neighborhood association members, community leaders, resident volunteers, community-based organization staff, business owners, local government staff, and municipal elected officials.
More than 400 neighborhood and organization leaders have participated in NLA, learning the skills and building the networks necessary to create whole communities.
Through virtual seminars, discussion, and personal community projects that apply tools and principles, participants will learn:
- Community building principles and strategies
- Personal leadership skills
- Project planning and implementation tools
- Organizational leadership and management practices
During the NLA, participants share and work on a community improvement project for their neighborhood. The following is a sample of their projects:
- Forming a neighborhood association to encourage more community involvement
- Proposing and implementing a community garden
- Developing a church-based community assets assessment
- Planning and obtaining funding for a neighborhood park
- Raising funds to endow a school-based youth cultural enrichment program
Participants who successfully complete the program will receive a Certificate in Neighborhood Leadership from the Chancellor of the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Continuing Education Units are also available.
FORMAT: For Missouri-wide residents: Residents across Missouri will attend the program in a hybrid format where sessions will be held virtually with some in-person sessions and events.
For St. Louis residents: St. Louis residents may choose to attend the program in the hybrid format with statewide participants OR fully in-person with other St. Louis residents.
REGISTRATION FEES: $325.00 (deadline: Wednesday, August 21 at 11:59pm)
Full & Partial Scholarships available!
SCHOLARSHIP DEADLINE: Thursday, August 1 at 11:59pm
Click here to apply: https://forms.gle/JT7eZ68jAyMijir46
Missouri residents, including St. Louis residents, who would like to attend NLA in the virtual/hybrid format, please register on this page.
· The hybrid sessions will be held on Wednesday nights from September 11 - November 13
St. Louis residents who would like to attend NLA fully in-person, please register here (20-person max. Capacity): https://web.cvent.com/event/c1bd1905-87c4-4dac-9a2e-293047dbd04c/register
Learn more here: http://cwc.umsl.edu/nla/
For questions, contact Elizabeth Anderson, elizabethanderson@missouri.edu.
Partners: UMSL CWC - Creating Whole Communities.
