A LEADERSHIP COHORT PROGRAM FOR EXPERIENCED NONPROFIT EXECUTIVES
As an executive director, you make complex decisions that affect your staff, board, organization, and community. Catalysts Together gives you a confidential community of peers who understand the role and can help you think through what comes next.
Catalysts Together is Longwood Foundation’s signature leadership program for nonprofit executive directors. Through trusted relationships, thoughtful reflection, and practical resources, you can become more grounded and confident in your leadership while strengthening the organization you lead.
CLICK HERE TO APPLY | PRIORITY DEADLINE: AUGUST 28
FINAL DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 21
A Community Built for Executive Directors
Executive leadership can be rewarding, demanding, and isolating. Some decisions may be difficult to discuss with your staff, board, funders, or others closely connected to your organization.
Catalysts Together gives you another place to turn.
You will join nonprofit executive directors from Delaware and the Kennett Square area of Pennsylvania who understand the responsibilities you carry. The program invests in you, the Catalyst, by providing the culture, resources, and experiences needed to be supported in your role. Together, you will ask difficult questions, share experiences and resources, consider new perspectives, and help one another move forward with greater clarity.
Real Decisions. Trusted Peers. Support that Adapts to You.
Executive leadership does not follow one predictable path, and every leader enters the program with different experiences, strengths, questions, and organizational circumstances.
The experience adapts to the situations you are navigating.
You may be responding to the loss of an important funding source, managing a difficult board relationship, strengthening your team, leading through growth, or making a personal decision that affects your work. These situations often require more than general information. You need time to think, people you trust, and perspectives that help you identify the right next step.
During monthly peer forums, you will bring current leadership and organizational issues to a confidential group of executive peers. They may ask questions, share relevant experiences, challenge an assumption, recommend a resource, or help you consider a consequence you had not yet identified.
Assessments, coaching, convenings, skilled volunteer support, and flexible funding deepen the experience. The program provides enough structure to build trust, consistency, and accountability while giving you room to pursue the growth most relevant to your leadership journey.
The community works because you contribute to it. You will be expected to protect confidentiality, bring honest questions, listen carefully, give and receive feedback, and support the growth of your peers.
An Investment Worth Making.
Longwood Foundation will underwrite most of the real value of the Catalysts Together program which equates to approximately $40,000 per person. In return, we ask for your time, effort, work, and commitment to leverage this program to strengthen yourself and your organization. The program fee is $5,500 for the initial 12 months. Limited scholarships are available for organizations that have budgets under $1,000,000 and demonstrate need through a scholarship application.
Program Cost: $5,500
Scholarships are available.
You will also be responsible for some direct travel and travel-related costs:
- Transportation by car to the overnight retreat
- Transportation by car to monthly peer forums and convenings (in New Castle County, DE).
“It is worth the time…the program provides the space for us to slow down so we can make better decisions.”
How the Experience Unfolds
Catalysts Together is an ongoing leadership community. The first two years provide the most structured and intensive support.
Year One: Understand and Refine Your Leadership
Your first year begins with two connected questions: Who are you as a leader, and how do you want to grow?
Through a kickoff convening, monthly peer forums, a confidential 360 degree leadership assessment, an overnight retreat, and the introduction of executive coaching, you will have opportunities to examine how you lead and how others experience your leadership. At the same time, you and your peers will build the trust, relationships, and shared expectations that allow the community to thrive. The year concludes with a Legacy Celebration. You will reflect on your growth, celebrate the relationships you have formed, and be recognized as a legacy
360 Leader Assessment
A confidential 360 degree assessment will help you understand your leadership from several perspectives.
In addition to your own assessment, you will receive feedback from people who experience your leadership, which may include staff members, board members, colleagues, or community partners.
Kick Off Convening
Your journey with your class begins on January 13, 2027, at DuPont Country Club.
You will meet your cohort, begin establishing shared expectations, and participate in activities that help you explore your leadership characteristics.
Monthly Peer Forums
Forums meet on the third Wednesday of each month from February through November 2027, with morning and afternoon options at Buena Vista Conference Center.
You will bring real questions, challenges, and opportunities to a confidential group of executive peers. Trained facilitators guide a consistent process that helps you reflect, sharpen the issue, and identify possible next steps.
Overnight Retreat
The retreat takes place April 14–15, 2027, at Moofys Farm House in Royal Oak, Maryland. It gives you time away from daily demands for deeper reflection, relationship building, and renewal.
Executive Coaching
Coaching is introduced near the end of Year One and continues into Year Two. Your coach provides confidential, one-on-one space to explore goals, patterns, assessment results, and leadership challenges.
Legacy Celebration
The Year One experience concludes December 15, 2027, at a location to be announced. You will reflect on your growth, celebrate your cohort, and be recognized as a Legacy member of the Catalysts Together community. This marks the official transition into Year Two.
Year Two: Connect Your Leadership to Your Organization
Your second year begins with the question: How is my leadership a catalyst to strengthen my organization?
During Year Two, you will continue your monthly peer forums and executive coaching while focusing more intentionally on your organization. A confidential organizational assessment will help you identify strengths and opportunities for growth. You will also receive a $10,000 Capacity Building Wallet that can support priorities for you, your team, or your organization. Funding may be used for approved capacity building needs such as a sabbatical, team training, conference participation, specialized support, or improvements to an organizational system.
Peer moderators will begin sharing responsibility for the forums so your cohort can develop the skills and shared ownership needed to continue with less formal program support.
Monthly Peer Forums
Organizational Assessment
A confidential assessment helps you and your leadership team identify strengths, challenges, and opportunities for growth across your organization.
Catchafire: Skills-Based Volunteer Matching for Your Organization
Your organization may opt into a platform that connects nonprofit professionals with skilled volunteers for projects involving communications, human resources, technology, strategy, data, and other organizational needs.
$10,000 Capacity Building Wallet
You receive flexible funding for approved priorities for you, your team, or your organization. Possible uses include a sabbatical, staff or board training, conference participation, specialized consulting, or improvements to an organizational systems.
Year Three and Beyond: Remain Part of the Community
After the first two years, you remain part of Catalysts Together. Your cohort may continue meeting regularly, or you may stay involved individually through optional gatherings, learning opportunities, meetups, and resources shared across the broader community.
Catalysts Together is a growing community, and how you participate may evolve as your leadership and circumstances change. In any circumstance, the community is here to support you.
