Achieving Leadership's Purpose, Inc.

Originally founded in 1968 as the Archbishop's Leadership Project ("ALP"), Achieving Leadership’s Purpose, Inc. is a Harlem based grassroots 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides leadership development training to high school youth of the African Diaspora, preparing them for a lifetime of civic leadership and global awareness. Moreover, it seeks to foster a commitment to service as well as prepare young men and women for leadership roles of mid-level management or higher in the fields of education, government, domestic and international community affairs, social justice, and philanthropy.

The organization delivers this service through a rigorous two-year process. The multi-component development and training process emphasizes critical thinking, presentation skills, leadership dynamics, an appreciation for history and culture, and service to others. We believe that our program has proven to be successful in developing confident, intelligent, and introspective leaders that embrace a desire to give back to their community.

ALP is unique as it not only fosters personal development, but it also encourages youth to work towards the development of their community. ALP exposes youth to their history and to contemporary issues facing the Black community. At the same time, ALP teaches the critical thinking skills needed to analyze issues, instills the leadership skill, and promotes the self-confidence needed to tackle the issues facing their communities.

Student attendance is mandatory to maintain membership in ALP. We work closely with parents to keep students on pace with the demands of ALP as well as their school work. ALP recruits a new cohort of students every 2 years. The program operates year round for 12 to 24 months (Rising seniors experience one year of the program, while rising juniors experience two years). During year one, the program coordinator and alumni lead all the training modules. During year two, the students practice what they have learned by leading all of the modules. The program modules include Lectures, Book Discussions, Theme Based Retreats, College Visits, Cultural Trips, Community Development Projects, and Parent/Student Meetings.

Singer Mary J. Blige was a retreat guest in 1990.

The website is www.alp-nyc.org.

History

Achieving Leadership’s Purpose, Inc., ("ALP") was originally founded in 1968 as the Archbishop’s Leadership Project by Terence Cardinal Cooke with the mission of cultivating African-American leadership in the Catholic Church, and serving the broader community. Over the years, the program has come to include students of various religious backgrounds and African Diasporan origins (African, African-American, Afro-Latino, Caribbean, and Caribbean-American). The Alumni of ALP have gone forth to distinguish themselves at the most prestigious colleges and universities in the nation and to pursue varied and challenging careers. Moreover, the alumni of ALP further develop a sense of urgency for social change and deeper cultural and self awareness.

In 1968, Father John Meehan was chosen to direct the first group, and tasked with designing a program that would encourage young Black men to pursue vocations in the priesthood. However, by the middle of their first weekend retreat, he discovered that the young men were less interested in joining the priesthood, and more interested in exploring their history and the issues facing their community. Keeping the needs of the youth in mind, by the end of the first two years, the original objective of attracting Black youth to the priesthood was subsumed into an integrated approach to motivate, inspire, and positively encourage young boys to consider roles of leadership within the African-American community.

In the summer of 1985, Fr. Meehan and alumnus Peter Sanders'74 met with Cardinal O'Connor to provide an introductory report on the program started by his predecessor, Cardinal Cooke. Impressed with the program, Cardinal O'Connor decided to keep ALP in the Archbishop’s discretionary budget and felt that the work of ALP could be extended to young women. When a new ALP group was formed in the spring of 1986, it included over twenty Black high school girls and a female co-coordinator, Ms. Taur Orange, making ALP a coeducational program. In March of 2005, ALP incorporated as an independent not-for-profit organization, changing its name to Achieving Leadership’s Purpose, Inc.

Throughout the years, the structure of ALP has remained the same, and has turned out successful individuals committed to serving their communities. Notable Alumni include: Theodore Shaw, Esq.'72 (Former Director of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.), Kweku Forstall, Esq. (Executive Director of Year Up Atlanta), Professor Alfred Young'84 (Chair of Sociology Department at the University of Michigan), and Laurie Cumbo'93 (Founder and Curator of the Museum of the of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NY). They all went through ALP’s unique and rigorous two-year leadership development and training process. The multicomponent development and training process emphasizes critical thinking, presentation skills, leadership dynamics, an appreciation for history and culture, and service to others.

External links

• Official website