PARTNER NAME Community Members – Receive a $100 Discount
Join your colleagues for the special member tuition rate
Super Early Bird Also Available Thru December 31 – Save An Additional $400
Compassionate Leadership in Global Health Certification
Transform Yourself and Your Organization to Meet the Demands of an Uncertain World
Eight-Week Cohort Begins Tuesday, February 14, 2023
Join a remarkable peer group of global health leaders from around the world to transform your leadership and your life. Lead Faculty includes Dr. David Addiss, Director of the Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics (FACE) at the Task Force for Global Health.
It’s time to become the compassionate leader you know you were born to be. Through a special collaboration between PARTNER NAME and the Center for Compassionate Leadership, PARTNER NAME community members can participate in the February 2023 cohort with a tuition discount of $100 off in addition to the Super Early Bird Discount of $400.
What will I gain by joining this compassionate leadership training?
Our groundbreaking program will equip you with empowering tools and evidence-based practices to lead courageously, confidently, and capably toward the advancement of your own well-being and the interconnected potential of your team. Come join this living laboratory, centered around unique curriculum and our compassionate community, where you can safely cultivate your leadership development and personal growth.
This transformational learning approach is proven to enable and sustain your leadership skills and life. Based on our time-tested Compassionate Leadership Model, the foundational curriculum guides each global health leader in the cohort to experience compassion from the inside out. We begin with a focus on the inner self, transition into the realm of relationships and organizational compassion, and extend outward to organizational systems change.
You will grow to:
Increase awareness of self, others, and your surroundings
Befriend your nervous system – overcome stress and burnout
Create cultures of safety, connection, and belonging
Navigate difficult conversations and give feedback skillfully
Apply courageous compassion to impact systems change
Our program is designed for global health professionals.
The global health community faces a unique set of challenges that compassionate leadership can help address. Together with the Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics (FACE) at the Task Force for Global Health, we have structured this curriculum to specifically address the rapid change and uncertainty experienced in global health leadership. We welcome leaders and practitioners from a wide range of organizations and varied levels, including national and international NGOs, foundations, universities, agencies, consulting firms, Ministries of Health, and other host country partners.
Some participants are new to mindfulness and compassion, while others have been putting their compassion into action for some period of time. Whatever your level of practice and/or wherever you’re coming from, we’re all on this compassionate leadership journey to create more impact! We come together in community to inspire and support each other during this eight-week program and beyond.
Program Alumni Locations
We will meet you where you are.
If you’ve been swimming upstream, against the tide of ingrained beliefs and outdated traditions that have reinforced your organizational leadership narrative, we honor and welcome you as an agent of empowerment and positive change.
If you’ve been drowning in an ocean of exhaustion and consumed by personal, team or organizational burnout, we recognize and hold restorative space for you to reinstate your full power.
If you’ve been embodying a wholehearted, compassionate approach to your work and already see the fruits of your compassionate leadership at play, we are here to water the seeds you have planted and amplify the impact you are creating in the field of global health and your life.
Wherever you are, we invite you to this experiential playground. Now is your time to lead with a brave heart, honor the call of your inner voice, and embrace compassionate leadership to reach your full potential.
What will this transformational compassionate leadership experience look like?
Each week, we gather to create a compassionate learning and growth culture. We do this by laying the foundation with scientific data and evidence-based leadership practices. Together, we integrate and embody these concepts with reinforcing practices, collaboration in small group breakouts, and through supportive conversation with the larger global health cohort community.
Path for the Eight-Week Learning Journey
The participant experience includes:
Weekly 90-minute live online experiential learning sessions, guided by expert faculty
Customized practices, meditations, and reflections
Peer breakout groups for deeper exploration, connection, and skill-building
Additional (optional) weekly sessions for compassion practice and Q&A with lead faculty
Program materials and recordings posted online and available for convenient streaming
Why me, and why now?
In this challenging and uncertain world, it often feels as if we are forced to choose between our own personal well-being, the protection of others, and the deliverance of peak leadership performance. We understand this tug of war between your internal resources and the weight of your leadership responsibilities for the well-being of colleagues, families, communities, and organizations. We’ve created a transformational experience to help you align and strengthen your internal and external capacities to not just meet these challenges, but to thrive and flourish in the times ahead.
The evidence for compassionate leadership is clear.
We share the evidence-based benefits that demonstrate the power of leading with compassion. No doubt this takes commitment, dedication, and practice. This program is an efficient and effective opportunity to integrate the tools and principles needed to be an impactful, compassionate leader.
The evidence-based benefits of compassionate leadership offer proven outcomes:
Stronger Individual and Organizational Resilience
Improved Clinical Patient Outcomes
Superior Service Quality
Accelerated Learning and Agility
Clarity of Mission, Purpose and Values
Improved Employee Engagement and Retention
Improved Financial Performance
Richer Creativity and Innovation
More Effective Collaboration
You were born to become a compassionate leader.
We live in a world where our personal and professional lives call out for compassion. As committed leaders, we can invite compassion into our lives as a response to organizational suffering, employee overwhelm, and a profound need to take care of ourselves. This instinct lives within us innately, whether we are conscious of it or not. These times demand humanity to pay attention to this compassionate reawakening as our catalyst for collective healing and hope.
At the Center for Compassionate Leadership, we have built an experiential training framework to spark meaningful, compassionate shifts in your life and your organizations. This February, we invite you to join us and a remarkable peer group of global health change-makers for an impactful learning journey. Throughout this eight-week program, we’ll explore the evidence-based principles and practices to equip us with the tools to create cultures of safety, resilience, connection, and belonging.
We are passionate about the quality of your experience.
Meaningful interpersonal connections create the foundation of your growth experience. Class size is limited to ensure high-quality attention, engagement, and participation across our close-knit peer community. We commit that you will have ample access to faculty to address your specific needs and concerns along the way. These peer and faculty networks serve as a new home base to support your own compassionate leadership journey.
The live online interactive format is tailored to the specific needs and questions of the cohort, as they arise in real time. Together we tackle the issues, challenges, and opportunities that are emerging in the global health field.
How have other compassionate leaders transformed their lives since completing this training?
Compassionate Leadership and Resilience Training alumni around the world report that the program delivers a transformational experience for their growth and development within their internal landscape, in relationship to others, and the impact they are making to the greater whole. Our courageous alumni now lead with compassion first – in their own lives, with their teams, and across their organizations. Alumni evaluations consistently rate the overall program experience as excellent.
“This course was an incredibly enriching experience. I especially enjoyed the deep connection we cultivated as a group which created a safe space for us to share our individual experiences and unique perspectives and challenges. It was a transformative eight weeks that left me feeling inspired and ready to lead with compassion, both personally and professionally.”
– Global Nonprofit Executive
“I would highly recommend this course to anyone who is looking to understand how compassionate leadership can be cultivated. This course offered an island of pause, reflection and learning in the middle of a busy week for 8 weeks. It was a weekly meeting I was sure never to miss!”
– Graduate Business School Professor
“Life is dynamic and therefore every action of leading in life is dynamic. There is nothing more important, and nothing that will change relationships, systems and self so much than honing the skills of leadership so that they are dynamic and adaptive. This course did just that – it worked with the awareness that our leadership is dynamic in an ever changing globally connected world. And it brought together ways to be comfortable when leading compassionately, to be clear when leading kindly, to be perceptive when leading in challenges, to be true to self when leading for change.
– University Chair
A look inside the transformational learning journey week by week.
Our time-tested Compassionate Leadership Framework fosters personal and leadership development from the inside out. The learning journey and curriculum are enhanced by connecting and supporting each other in a powerful peer community during the eight-week program and beyond. We gather live online at 11 am EST – 12:30 pm EST (UTC -5:00) for eight consecutive Tuesdays from February 14 – April 4, 2023.
Week 1
Igniting Our Community for Impact
Stepping into the Journey Together
Come together as a community with your colleagues and learn about compassionate leadership fundamentals from everyday practices to systems-changing force.
Week 2
The Case for Compassionate Leadership
Science, Organizational Evidence, and Model for Integration
Gain an understanding of the science of compassion, the evidence supporting the power of compassion in organizations, and the challenges to compassionate leadership.
Week 3
Anchoring Our Leadership with Inner Strength
Inner Work of Compassionate Leadership:
Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, and Vulnerability
Deepen your ability to lead from a grounded, anchored place supported by awareness, self-compassion, and resilience.
Week 4
Building a Culture of Compassion
Psychological Safety, Mindset, and Resilience
Learn how to create a culture of compassion through evidence-based organizational leadership principles and skills.
Week 5
Fostering Belonging in Organizations
Inclusion for Everyone: Othering, Bias, and Belonging
Explore new perspectives and tools to foster a culture of belonging in organizations for everyone.
Week 6
Communication as a Transformational Tool
Compassionate Communication and Feedback
Develop the skills to have difficult conversations and share meaningful feedback with colleagues.
Week 7
Courageous Compassion
Changing Systems from the Inside Out
Learn how to apply courageous compassion and take action to change systems from the inside out.
Week 8
Interconnectedness and Impact
Integrating Compassion and Leadership for the Benefit of All
Chart your personal path and commit to integrate compassion into your daily life and leadership for the benefit of all.
Additional time for practice and Q&A with lead faculty
In addition to the weekly live sessions on Tuesday we will also host an optional session each Friday at 9:30am ET.
Each Friday session will feature a compassion and/or awareness practice to strengthen our skills and broaden our capacities. The practices will reinforce principles from the curriculum covered during the main course session earlier in the week. Together we will explore the power of these practices in community. We’ll have time and space to experience which ones feel most appropriate for our unique individual and organizational situation.
After practice, there will be time for question and answers on anything related to the weekly content, compassionate leadership in general, or the practices.
Please click the button below to apply. The application process for PARTNER NAME community members only takes a couple of minutes.
“I could not have taken the Compassionate Leadership and Resilience Training at a better time. I walked away from the course with skills that are beneficial to my personal and professional life. The participants were from all over the world and brought varied experiences and expertise, which added additional value to the course. Not only did I learn a great deal from the presenters, I gained a wealth of knowledge from the other participants. I received tangible leadership skills that I will be able to incorporate into my department and overall organization.”
– Global NGO Executive
About the Center for Compassionate Leadership
The nonprofit Center for Compassionate Leadership convenes and supports a global community of transformational leaders dedicated to building a new world of connection, safety, belonging, equity, and justice. Together we are courageously pioneering solutions to the great challenges of 2023 through the lens of compassion, love, and flourishing.
This exceptional eight-week Compassionate Leadership and Resilience Training program is based on decades of leadership experience and wisdom practice, coupled with emerging scientific and organizational evidence to validate our embodied knowing. Hundreds of alumni that have been through the journey are positively impacting the world in remarkable ways.
The momentum of our individual and collective action is how we change ourselves, organizations, systems, and the larger whole. Never underestimate even the smallest act of compassion – it’s ripples are a powerful and essential contribution to the larger river of all life.
Course Faculty
Laura Berland
Laura Berland is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Compassionate Leadership. She is a weaver of next generation organizations and collaborative experiences, as a serial media/tech entrepreneur, Fortune 500 executive, transformational facilitator, nonprofit board member, meditation educator, yoga therapist, and executive mentor.
Now, through the Center for Compassionate Leadership, she has developed a new model for these turbulent times that melds evidence-based principles of modern leadership and the latest scientific research with the wisdom of contemplative practices. Laura has extensive experience working with global executives, entrepreneurs, coaches, professors and graduate students, military veterans, and yoga/meditation teachers. She is an E-RYT500 (accredited educator) from Yoga Alliance, and C-IAYT (certified yoga therapist) from International Association of Yoga Therapists. Laura is an alumna of Cornell University and New York University.
Evan Harrel
Evan Harrel is the Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Compassionate Leadership. He leads the Center’s thought leadership efforts and the integration of scientific and business research into the work of the Center. For the last fifteen years, he has worked in the nonprofit field, including as an executive director, consultant, and board member. Evan has taught about compassion to both nonprofit organizations and for-profit corporate boards.
Prior to his dedication to the nonprofit sector, Evan was an investment manager for over twenty years where he managed a thirty-billion-dollar equity mutual fund. He was awarded a Master of Business Administration degree, with distinction, from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, from Princeton University.
David Addiss
David Addiss, MD, MPH, is a leader in the field of compassion in global health. He is currently the director of the Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics (FACE) at the Task Force for Global Health. In addition, he is the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Global Health.
Dr. Addiss received his MD from the Medical College of Georgia in 1981 and his MPH from Johns Hopkins University. He co-directed the WHO’s Collaborating Center for Control and Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis in the Americas, based at the CDC, served as the director of the Fetzer Institute’s program in science and spirituality, and directed the Children Without Worms program at the Task Force for Global Health. Dr. Addiss has co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications, a book, and several book chapters.
Kenya Casey
Kenya Casey, MSW, serves as senior faculty for the Center for Compassionate Leadership’s Certification programs. Ms. Casey is experienced in creating cultures of safety, connection and belonging within organizations and has catalyzed profound organizational impact and change throughout her career. Her approach is rooted in the importance of relationships, kindness, mentoring, and mindfulness.
Ms. Casey is the Director of Global Safety and Security for Emory University. She strengthens support for Emory students’ and employees’ travel health, safety and security, with a particular focus on ensuring best practices for all international travel. She also leads university wide efforts to enhance health, safety, and security before, during, and after travel to Emory community members who are engaged in and/or support international travel.
Ms. Casey previously served as senior associate director of Overseas Operations for The Carter Center Health Programs for 7 years, managing daily office operations of five program areas and eleven field offices, and serving as senior advisor on security of international staff and Carter Center travelers. While at the Carter Center, Ms. Casey helped foster a movement that continues to this day to deepen the Center’s compassionate culture.
Previously, she worked in Emory’s Center for International Programs Abroad, where she trained administrators on best practices and ways to increase participation and belonging among student groups historically underrepresented in study abroad.
Ms. Casey earned her B.A. in Psychology from Clark Atlanta University and her Master’s degree in social work from Howard University. As a certified Workplace Mindfulness Facilitator, Ms. Casey leads monthly meditations for The Carter Center domestic and international staff, as well as leading weekly mindfulness sessions for a diverse group of practitioners.
“The training on Compassionate Leadership and Resilience is a great opportunity to do self-audit, share challenges and opportunities with fellow colleagues in pretty much similar circumstances and start a new journey with lot of optimism.”
– Global Executive
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is the format of the online training?
The course is an eight-week learning journey with a global peer community. Each live session meets weekly at 11 am EST – 12:30 pm EST (UTC -5:00) for eight consecutive Tuesdays from February 14 – April 4, 2023. Recordings of each session are posted shortly thereafter, in case you cannot attend live.
Each weekly session includes live discussion and training with a focus on experiential learning through practices and exercises, as well as small group breakouts with your peers.
All course materials and additional resources will be posted online and available for downloading. You are encouraged to attend as many live sessions as possible, but you will also reap the benefits of the course if you listen to the recordings.
How many hours of work are required to complete the training? Is there homework?
There are eight weekly live class sessions, 1.5 hours each, for a total of 12 hours of group class time. There is no formal homework, however there will be weekly reflection questions that you may contemplate on your own.
There is an optional weekly hour available to meet with lead faculty and peers for Q&A and open discussion.
Will I have one-on-one access to lead faculty?
Yes. The class size is limited to ensure individual attention. Additionally, lead faculty will host a weekly supplemental Zoom meeting where you will be free to ask additional questions or discuss a topic in more detail. Should the time for these sessions be inconvenient, you are welcome to correspond via email with lead faculty.
What technology is required to access the course?
Live sessions will be conducted on the Zoom platform. You will need a free subscription to Zoom to connect to the course. Zoom may be accessed through computers, tablets, or any mobile phone. If you need further information on Zoom, please visit www.zoom.us to sign up for free.
How does the program address Trauma-Informed leadership?
There are few people or organizations that have not been faced with trauma, loss, or suffering. This is especially true and more urgent in the wake of the pandemic. Yet many leaders are reluctant to address these challenges with individuals, with teams, and with their organization. We prepare leaders to be trauma-informed by courageously utilizing the lens of compassion, bringing a heightened level of awareness, care, and concern to every encounter.
Trauma-informed leaders create conditions of safety and support, where everyone can acknowledge, heal, and grow from the most difficult circumstances. You will find that trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive best practices are woven throughout our compassionate leadership training.
Will I receive a certificate upon completing this training?
Yes, you will receive a certificate of completion from the Center for Compassionate Leadership. Certificates will be delivered electronically, so that they can be shared on LinkedIn or other digital channels.
Do I have life-long access to the course material?
Yes, you will be able to access the materials and recordings at any time in the future.
What are the fees for the program?
Through a special collaboration between PARTNER NAME and the Center for Compassionate Leadership, PARTNER NAME community members can participate in the February 2023 cohort training at a special tuition rate of $100 off, instead of the regular course investment of $1,250 USD. If you apply before 11:59pm EST 12/31, you will be eligible for an addition Super Early Bird Discount of $400.
What payment methods are accepted for the program?
Payment may be made directly online with a major credit card or via PayPal. If you would like us to invoice your organization, please send your request via email to cfclprograms@gmail.com.
What are the terms for payment? Will you refund my fee if I have to withdraw?
You may pay the fee in one payment or in two equal installments. Your full or first payment is due within two weeks of acceptance into the program. If you choose to pay in two installments, the second payment is due three weeks before the program begins.
If you must withdraw up to one week prior to the start of the course, your fees are refundable in full, less a $100 USD administrative fee.
Are scholarships available?
Yes. We strive to make the course and community available to all individuals and organizations dedicated to compassionate leadership. We are able to offer a limited number of partial and full scholarships to highly qualified candidates. If you would like to be considered for a scholarship, please complete this application.
What is covered in the program fee? Are there any additional costs?
The program fee covers the entire eight-week curriculum, access to the live Zoom sessions, and lifetime access to session recordings, program materials, and the ongoing alumni community. There are no additional fees.
Can my organization pay for the program?
Yes. We can invoice your organization directly or provide you with an invoice to submit.
Can I participate from anywhere in the world?
Yes, indeed. The program was developed for global leaders around the world. Sessions are delivered online and are available from anywhere Zoom can be accessed with an internet connection or telephone line.
“Applying self compassion to leadership, effective communication and greater awareness are invaluable and will help build kinder, better more appropriate structures.”
– Global NGO Executive