Our History
When the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation (PLF) was established in 1978 the world was becoming increasingly urban, resulting in four things that PLF was organized to respond to:
- Geography without community
- Increasing activity with inadequate systems
- A growing disparity between the rich and the poor
- Denominationalism without an ethos of ecumenism.
1978
Leadership Foundations (LF) traces its roots back to the establishment of Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation (PLF). Its mission was to bring people and resources from across the whole Church together with others of goodwill to meet the personal, spiritual, physical and economic needs of Pittsburgh’s most distressed neighborhoods. PLF’s work focused on building bridges and developing working relationships among leaders, churches and community ministries, and forming new partnerships to rebuild lives and neighborhoods in the city’s core. Leaders from all sectors of the city became connected, committed to serving together to meet their city’s needs, expanding joint ministry for high-risk youth, tackle drug addiction, develop needed housing, extend holistic health care across the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods, and develop a gifts-in-kind storehouse that benefits thousands of residents. New ministry networks and organizations were formed, strengthened and spun off from PLF. Thousands of lay and ministry leaders have been trained and become connected to specific needs and community ministries. Thousands of people’s lives have been transformed through this process.
1980s
Seeing Pittsburgh’s success, Christian leaders in other cities began to establish similar leadership foundations during the 1980s – Philadelphia, Denver, Chicago, Phoenix and Memphis. PLF and its president, Reid Carpenter, shared their experience with new cities. Others, including urban ministry champion Ray Bakke, helped cities consider how God can unite the whole church in caring for its city across all geographic, racial and denominational divides.
1990s
Active leadership foundations were in 10 cities. An annual training institute was established to respond to the many requests from other cities for information and to share best practices.
1993
The Council of Leadership Foundations was formally registered as an organization with 501 (c) 3 status. The name was later changed to Leadership Foundations of America.
2000s
Leadership foundations were active in over 30 cities around the globe. The Leadership Foundation model of city transformation was further adopted by some of the poorest cities in the world. Leaders of local LFs began gathering regionally, in Africa and Asia, along with North America. Leadership Foundations of America began to be known simply as Leadership Foundations.
2008
In efforts to further develop, strengthen and sustain local LFs, Leadership Foundations implemented a series of task groups in the network to standardize, support and streamline best practices, ranging from evaluation standards to program replication. These task groups continue to address these issues for maximum impact and efficiency as local LFs continue to carry out the task of transforming cities.
2009 – Present
Leadership Foundations developed a specific framework that identifies the three primary functions of a local leadership foundation, and the eight core capabilities required to carry out those functions. The membership asked to be evaluated based on those functions and capabilities. Today, the entire membership has been vetted based on this framework, and receives accreditations and specialized training around the 3 Functions and 8 Capabilities.
