About
Statewide Community of Leaders
Redwood Fellows is a growing statewide community of 85 influential leaders representing 12 professional sectors and 42 towns and cities across Connecticut. We are multi-generational: Fellows range in age from 27 to 70 and our median age is 46. 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 influential leaders in building trusting relationships to advance collaborative action.
Our Theory of Impact
Redwood is built on a theory of impact that unfolds across three levels. The first is the individual leader: through the Fellowship and Statewide Community, leaders enhance their well-being, expand their networks, strengthen their leadership skills and influence, deepen their ability and desire to work across lines of difference, and grow more likely to stay in Connecticut leading work that strengthens the state. The second level follows from the first: as these individual outcomes take hold, their effects extend to the institutions and coalitions those leaders serve. The third is systemic: when first- and second-order outcomes are widespread, and as Redwood approaches a critical mass of more than 200 actively engaged leaders, we aspire to see change in the larger system. The third-order outcomes are the hardest to plan for, but they become far more likely when the first two levels are consistently present.
By 2030, more than 200 Fellows will actively engage in Redwood, reaching the scale at which a statewide community of influential leaders begins to change what is possible for Connecticut.
The Fellowship
How a year in Redwood becomes a lifetime in the community
Redwood begins as a curated Fellowship experience and grows into a Statewide Community Fellows engage in for years. Here is the arc:
New Groves come together
Each year, two new Groves—cohorts of influential, cross-sector leaders from towns and cities throughout Connecticut—are nominated and convened. The Fellowship begins by building relationships before agendas.
01
Four retreats anchor the first year
Away from the day-to-day grind of leadership, Fellows make space for reflection, vulnerability, dialogue, and the trust that cross-sector work depends on.
02
Relationships deepen into trust
Between retreats, Fellows keep showing up for one another. What starts as connection across difference becomes a durable, statewide web of trusted peers.
03
Trust becomes collaborative action
With trust established, Fellows leverage each other’s good work, turning relationships into collaborative action for a stronger Connecticut.
04
The Statewide Community
The community that lasts beyond the year
The Statewide Community merges Groves to bring Fellows together into one community through which Fellows remain engaged for years, organized around three core components.
Canopy Retreats
Gatherings of the entire Statewide Community to deepen relationships, 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.
Leadership Rings
Seminars designed to strengthen trust, empathy, and collaborative capacity among Fellows. Leadership Rings offer an opportunity for Fellows to 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.
Clusters
Smaller groups of Fellows who gather regularly around shared interests, regions, or challenges, keeping the community close between retreats. Clusters enable Fellows to build the connective tissue that nurtures the network of the Statewide Community.
Leaders building a stronger Connecticut together
The proof of Redwood is in its people: influential leaders who came for the relationships and stayed for the community.
“I have appreciated the opportunity to meet like-minded leaders, and for the space the retreats offered to gather moments of clarity and mental escape from the day-to-day grind of leadership. Both the reflection time and connection with peers have made me a more resilient and empathetic leader which has had a positive impact on my decisions professionally and personally.”
— Matthew Quinones, Director of Operations, City of Stamford
“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, Professor & Executive Director, Allbritton Center, Wesleyan University
“Overall, Redwood allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and to look past today to see what my personal legacy and vision are for long-term impact.”
— Jeff Currey, Chief of Staff to the House Majority Leader, Connecticut General Assembly
