Future Leaders in Action's mission is cultivate leaders, strengthen nonprofits and support youth.

We believe that everyone should have access to growth and leadership opportunities regardless of socioeconomic conditions. Since 2015, our focus has been to cultivate leaders, strengthen nonprofits, and support youth. We do this by recruiting emerging social sector leaders, known as fellows, to work full-time, on-site with one of our partner organizations.

Fellows gain meaningful and impactful work and leadership experience while earning a living wage. Our partners gain the work of a dedicated fellow in one of our program focus areas at no cost to their organization.

Cultivate Leaders

Our flagship fellowship program is designed to provide change-makers with diverse lived experiences ages 18-25 the experiences, skills, and resources they need to make an impact in their community.

How we currently do it: 

• We assign Fellows a specific project to complete, allowing them to develop key project and project management skills, improving their sense of confidence

• We pay living wage salaries to support better short-term and long-term outcomes for Fellows

• We provide professional and leadership development training necessary to make an impact during, and after, the fellowship.

Longer term vision:

• Remove financial barriers to social impact leadership for change-makers from under-resourced backgrounds by paying Fellows a thriving wage (+25% or more above the living wage) thus helping close the leadership diversity gap in the social sector.

Strengthen Nonprofits

Our goal is to strengthen the social sector by increasing both its diversity and capacity.

creating a diverse talent pipeline of entry-level talent with strong potential for careers in nonprofit leadership. capacity for nonprofits through the fellows’ work and creating space for innovation and testing of new ideas. 

How we currently do it: 

• We recruit diverse talent for our fellowship program 

• Fellows work with partners at reduced cost 

• Some fellows receive full-time offers and continue to work with the partner organization post-fellowship 

Longer term vision:

• Cultivate a diverse network of alumni who continue to support the social sector and  to help close the leadership diversity gap 

• Creating a sustainable and healthy social sector (reducing turnover, attracting young talent to the field WHO STAY IN THE FIELD) 

• Fostering collaboration between nonprofit partners (bring partners and stakeholders together to foster a more connected social sector) 

How we achieve longer term vision (strategic plan) 

• Deepening our dei commitments to align with orgs in three focus areas 

• Pushing our nonprofit partners to align with more supportive workplace environments – need for professional development for interns/fellows; self-care; etc 

• Modeling a supportive environment for both partners and fellows (so more likely to do this in the future) 

• Prioritizing partners with diverse leadership

Support youth