About
Redwood Fellows’ mission is to build a statewide community that supports accomplished leaders in achieving their aspirations while accelerating their individual and collaborative impact.
We are a growing statewide community of 82 influential leaders representing 13 professional sectors and 43 towns across Connecticut. We are multi-generational: Fellows range in age from 27 to 70 and our median age is 46. More than half of our community identify as Leaders of Color. We represent multiple viewpoints, ideologies, and affiliations.
We forge trusting relationships across lines of difference to establish common ground. We embrace the opportunity to build a community that transcends differences and strengthens our foundation with our common goal of a stronger Connecticut.
Fellows trust and care for one another, they show up for each other, they bridge divides for each other, and every time they do, the community becomes stronger. The stronger the community, the greater the opportunity and capacity to improve Connecticut.
Redwood begins with a curated Fellowship experience. The Fellowship experience leads to membership in the Statewide Community that actively supports accomplished leaders in building trusting relationships to advance collaborative action. The aim is for Fellows to remain active members of the Statewide Community for years, advancing our individual and collaborative impact beyond the Fellowship.
By 2030, we will grow to more than 200 Fellows in the Statewide Community. Imagine the immense possibilities.
Fellowship Experience
The Fellowship experience centers around four in-person retreats, as well as additional opportunities for collaboration in between retreats. The retreats follow a programming arc designed to build community among a Grove of leaders and support Fellows in achieving their goals. The program arc emphasizes specific themes:
Building trust: the foundation
Being vulnerable: opportunities for growth
Embracing purpose: aspiration and legacy
Expanding opportunity and well-being: active community
Retreats bring these themes to life through experiential learning while delving into real-time reflection and collective visioning and problem-solving. Fellows organize additional activities as necessary to further cultivate relationships and advance common interests.
Accomplished leaders who participate in Redwood Fellows benefit in the following ways:
Access: Fellows increase their access to influential leaders, networks, and resources.
Professional Learning: Fellows strengthen their skills in inclusive, transformative leadership.
Community: Fellows become part of a supportive statewide community and develop meaningful relationships with leaders who share a commitment to expanding opportunity and well-being throughout Connecticut.
Self-Care: Fellows experience a beautiful retreat setting where they are safe and encouraged to reflect, restore, and prioritize themselves.
Well-being: Fellows increase their happiness and well-being as a result of fostering close relationships and connections with other leaders.
Professional Advancement: Fellows receive active support from a statewide community of accomplished leaders who help them ascend and lead institutions.
Efficacy and Impact: Fellows become more successful in their individual leadership positions, accelerating the impact of the institutions they lead.
“The act of building community across identities, ideologies, sectors, towns, and generations to enable dialogue and move past silos and divisions is itself an incredibly valuable collaborative action.”
- Dr. Khalilah Brown-Dean
Statewide Community Experience
The Statewide Community experience merges Groves to bring Fellows together into one community through which Fellows remain engaged for years. The experience organizes around three core components.
Clusters
Clusters are Fellow-initiated activities or gatherings that bring together three or more Fellows for purposes of relationship-building, learning, and/or skill development. Clusters enable Fellows to build the connective tissue that nurtures the network of the Statewide Community. Any particular Cluster may exist once or it may operate on a recurring basis, depending on its purpose as envisioned by the Fellow who initiated it.
Leadership Rings
Leadership Rings are organized as text-based dialogue seminars. The first Leadership Ring, Leading with Courage and Connection, is a six-session learning experience designed to strengthen trust, empathy, and collaborative capacity among Fellows. The series offers a unique opportunity for Fellows to opt in to courageous dialogue, engage with the ideas and experiences of influential social change leaders, practice wholehearted conversation across lines of difference, and deepen their ability to stay grounded in relationship and shared purpose when deeply held values and beliefs do not align.
Canopy Retreats
Canopy Retreats are in-person gatherings of the entire Statewide Community held three times per year to convene all Fellows to deepen connections, enhance well-being, and advance collaborative action. Seeing “the forest through the trees,” these in-person gatherings focus on the big picture relative to our mission.
