Leadership Accelerated – Pinkerton Supports Program for Leaders of Color

The Pinkerton Foundation has launched a new program to support leaders of color in the youth service field, the Foundation’s President and CEO Rick Smith announced today.  Open to BIPOC heads of current or former Pinkerton grantees, The Pinkerton Advanced Leadership Network will offer twelve leaders the space, support and professional development resources to sharpen skills, share insights and explore new ways to drive impact in the youth development field.

“Pinkerton has a longstanding commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion that extends beyond our traditional grantmaking,” said Smith. “The Advanced Leadership Network recognizes that leaders of color often face unique challenges operating in the nonprofit world. By encouraging deep collaborative thinking and funding intensive coaching on subjects identified by the participants themselves, we hope to accelerate the career development of this talented group of executives.”

Applications to join the Network are now being accepted. Further information is available under grant guidelines at www.thepinkertonfoundation.org.  The participants will be selected by the end of February 2021, and the two-year program will launch in March. Erica Hamilton, a longtime nonprofit senior executive and diversity strategist, will coordinate the Network.  Hamilton is the founder of MING (the Memo I Never Got consulting group) and has served on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and NYU. She will work with the group as it shapes its mission as well as design individualized coaching programs. In addition, she will host meetings with experts in youth development and organizational management.

The Pinkerton Foundation will be the sole funder of the Network for at least the first two years.  Program Officer Danielle Pulliam will serve as an active thought partner on the project, but Hamilton and the initial group of participants will have full responsibility for designing and shaping the details of the program.

“We recognize these are difficult and stressful days, but for those grantee leaders who can carve out the time, the Network will offer a unique opportunity to join with their peers to learn and grow,” said Laurie Dien, Pinkerton’s Vice President/Executive Director for Programs. “Above all, we hope that sharing strategies for overcoming common challenges will create a community and, like the foundation’s other networks, inform the greater field.”

The Advanced Leadership Network is part of a larger Pinkerton Racial Equity Initiative. Launched in the spring after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police, the Initiative includes a series of grants to programs doing exceptional work on issues of racial justice and civil rights, as well as a two-year $600,000 initiative to support organizations led by people of color in the foundation’s portfolio. Roughly one-third of the nearly 300 programs funded by Pinkerton are led by BIPOC executives, and the foundation’s grants recognize both the particular challenges faced by those leaders and the additional burdens imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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About the Pinkerton Foundation

The Pinkerton Foundation is an independent grantmaking organization established in 1966 by Robert Allan Pinkerton, the Chairman and CEO of Pinkerton’s, Inc., then the nation’s oldest and largest security company. The foundation, which retains no ties to the firm, supports community-based programs for children, youth and families in economically disadvantaged areas in New York City.