The Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program (BECLP) is a transformative leadership fellowship designed to empower leaders across Colorado who are passionate about shaping not only their own future, but the future of children, families, and communities.
This program brings together influential voices from education, business, public service, health, and community organizations to strengthen leadership capacity and drive meaningful systems change.
Fellows join a dynamic peer-learning community where they collaborate with experts and colleagues from across the state. Together, they explore cutting-edge leadership practices, tackle complex and persistent challenges, and co-design innovative strategies for impact.
Through the program, fellows engage in a deeply personalized growth experience that includes leadership coaching, strengths-based development, and systems change thinking. Graduates become part of the Buell Early Childhood Leaders Network—a powerful community of alumni who continue to learn, collaborate, and lead initiatives that improve outcomes for children and families across Colorado.
The Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program is build around three core goals that strengthen both individual and collective leadership:
Cultivate a statewide fellowship of impact-driven leaders.
Engage in a 9-month leadership journey that unites professionals from diverse sectors to strengthen their skills, advance equity, and spark innovation—personally, within their organizations, and across early childhood systems.
Collaborate to solve real, systemic challenges.
Provide a cross-sector forum where fellow work together to identify local, regional, and statewide challenges and co-create solutions that drive sustainable systems change.
Build leadership capacity for influence and action.
Strengthen fellows’ ability to lead confidently within their spheres of control and extend their influence through strategic collaboration, multiple leadership approaches, and systems thinking.
Understand professional strengths and areas for growth
Identify preferred leadership style
Explore values and motivations for engaging in the early childhood ecosystem
Recognize how your identities, biases, and privileges influence your actions the experiences of others
Collaborative Leadership
Flex leadership styles to work across difference—including alongside those who have been historically excluded
Develop authentic relationships that enable others to contribute to a shared vision
Understand, navigate, and build power and political will to effect change
Use change management principles and practices to achieve desired outcomes
Systemic Leadership
Understand the history and current state of the early childhood ecosystem—nationally and in Colorado including policies, program models, key players, and available resources
Explore root causes of key structural challenges facing the early childhood ecosystem such as workforce, accessibility, quality, affordability, and funding
Develop advocacy and systems change strategies to address structural challenges and understand when to deploy various strategies to be most effective
Employ an equity lens to policies and practices to facilitate transformative change
Inclusivity is a core value of the program. The cohort of 20 Colorado early childhood advocates will be selected to represent diversity of organization type, industry focus, as well as individual race, ethnicity, and gender. We know that engaging individuals with multiple perspectives enhances the value of the program for all participants. Individuals should apply if they are:
Working in, advocating for, or passionate about creating positive change for young children, families, and communities across Colorado—whether in education, business, government, philanthropy, health, or the nonprofit sector.
In a leadership or decision-making role—formal or informal—with the ability to influence people, policies, or practices within your organization, community, or region.
Interested in designing and implementing strategies that drive meaningful, sustainable impact, both within your own context and across broader systems.
Committed to advancing equity and inclusion by expanding access to opportunities and resources within your organization or community.
Eager to collaborate with a diverse network of peers across the state, reflect on your leadership practice, and strengthen your ability to lead with purpose, empathy, and influence.
