Dayton's leaders UNITE!

Leadership Dayton, a program of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, is a premier leadership development program designed to identify, educate and motivate a network of community leaders and increase the individual's capacity to serve the Dayton region. Selected participants learn through seminars, small work groups, panel discussions, direct interaction with community leaders, and a variety of experiential activities. Leadership Dayton is the fourth oldest continuously operating community leadership program in the United States. Leadership Dayton is a regional program and program participants live, work and serve in a number of counties throughout the Miami Valley including: Butler, Clark, Darke, Greene, Miami, Montgomery, Preble, Shelby and Warren (Taken from the Leadership Dayton Website).

So what does all of those fancy words translate into?  Well, the best way I can describe it is that Leadership Dayton is not “cookie cutter”.  Whatever you put into it is what you get out of it.  I had the privilege of being a part of the 40th LD Class, Class of 2016 (the best class to date), and have had many amazing experiences.  I had the opportunity of meeting 47 amazing and unique individuals who I would have never met before.

Each month the Leadership Dayton program dives into a different topic within the city.  These topics ranged from Dayton’s Rich Heritage, to Cultural Arts within the city.  We also had unique opportunities such as an all day tour of WPAFB and the chance to ride along with our boys in blue from the Dayton Police (Officer Jordan from Dayton’s 2nd district is the man).

On top of that, each class gets to do a class project.  For our project, we teamed up with the folks from Dayton Children's to paint two icons for the hospital.  These icons will be on display at The Greene and Austin Landing.  If you get a chance, snap a picture with them and use #LeadershipDaytonChildrens in your picture.  Check out the YouTube Montage  of our class creating the icons.  Also there are pictures below.

So how do you get involved with the program?  The Class for 2017 has already been selected, but informational meetings about the class of 2018 will be available to the public in a few months.  I highly encourage you to first check out the informational meeting and see if you are ready for the program.

Leadership Dayton is not a Leadership training program.  If you make it into the class, you have already been identified as a leader.  The program helps to show you all parts of the city, good & bad, as well as provides resources on how to become a better community leader.  If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me or I can point you in the direction of 46 others happy to chat.  Also, all information can also be found at the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce website under the Leadership Dayton section.