My introduction to Coro was unconventional. Knowing little about the organization’s mission and wanting to become involved in health care policy, I gave up my medical practice and completed the post-graduate Fellows Program in San Francisco in 2001. During the intervening years my wife, Suzanne, and I have had the opportunity to become involved with Coro’s Exploring Leadership and Partnership programs.
You, of course, are familiar with Coro’s programs: opportunities for its participants to learn about effective leadership and to how to develop meaningful solutions to the challenges facing their communities.
The question I am addressing is why Suzanne and I donate our time and resources to Coro? Many non-profit organizations, including Coro, are struggling in this financial climate.
My answer: the Coro Multiplier Effect. Coro’s leadership “tools”, skills introduced in experiential settings–learning about the real world in the real world, a proprietary curriculum that Coro has honed over 65 years, are being presented to teens, recent college graduates, mid-career professionals and university professors by an organization with a paid staff of 8.
This year Exploring Leaderships’ new Coro Youth in Action program–guided by 35 Youth Fellows and their Campus managers–will have 191 9th and 10th graders in after-school leadership programs at 12 Bay Area high schools.
Over the past 6 years, Coro Center for Civic Leadership, San Francisco, has designed and implemented a new program that has helped over 150 faculty members and mid and high-level administrators at UCSF (the second largest employer in San Francisco) and the UCD Health Care System with problem-solving and decision making. Coro’s academic health care center graduates are recommending that their colleagues receive this experiential training, resulting in more applicants than positions available. One can only conjecture as to the impact this training has had on the health of their communities.
Suzanne and I believe that our time and dollars are being well spent.