Gulf South Leadership Institute

The mission of the Gulf South Leadership Institute is to ignite innovative, vibrant, and progressive leadership and management practices within a given community.

Programs and services provided by the Institute are inspired by the premise that community development happens in the context of people development, and we believe that as we train one leader at a time we add quality to the communities around us.

Gulf South Leadership Institute was incorporated in 2009 and the organization’s initial focus was to assist the faith-based community which was heavily involved with post Katrina relief efforts. Since then, the Institute has played a vital role of supporting leadership structures for sixteen different churches and faith-based nonprofits within Greater New Orleans.

In 2010 the Institute engaged in conversation with some entrepreneurs and business leaders who had been engaged in some of the seminars and workshops offered by GSLI. The conversation developed into a plight from the business community for the Institute to provide coaching and consulting services embracing the same model used to provide leadership support for faith based organizations. As a result of this conversation GSLI added an organizational leadership consulting and coaching service. The mission of the organizational leadership service is to help create high performance working environments, improve organizational operations, and encourage proprietors to maximize on proactive management. To Date GSLI has partnered with other organizations to provide consulting services for South Baton Rouge Council on Aging, City of New Orleans Office of Workforce Development, and a few local small business owners.

LEGACY YOUTH DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

A response to the alarming local and national high school dropout statistics led to the implementation of GSLI’s third service area, namely: Legacy Youth Development Institute. Legacy Youth Development Institute is a part of the answer to the challenging question, “what can we do to help our teenagers stay engaged in the pursuit of education?” Legacy Youth Development program partners with the adult professional community to mentor teenagers. Professionals are drawn from different professions namely: health care, wellness and fitness, city government, banking, technology development, industrial science, engineering, wildlife and fisheries, theater and fine arts.
Legacy Youth Development Summer Institute is designed to develop young people who: pursue and attain high educational and meaningful career goals, and possess a leadership awareness that inspires them to give back to the community. The main goal of the program can be summarized in that, we seek to connect the youth in our community with the professional community to help build concrete life skills, that facilitate for educational pursuit, healthy decision making and enable effective career path development.
To this end, we offer a results oriented and structured program with experiences that aid trust building, honest communication, self-respect, tolerance, pursuit of a drug-free lifestyle, and healthy relationships with adult mentors and peers.
This transforming process is a great undertaking, and as such calls for the collaboration of resources and energies. Since the Legacy Youth Development Institute is specifically a summer program, we will partner with other organizations or educational institutions with permanent, ongoing programs implemented for the same purpose.
Legacy is a much needed concept in our society, and it is a concept that makes or breaks organizations, businesses, communities and even families. Establishing a legacy by mentoring young people who will in turn become leaders is by far the greatest way we can measure the successful building up of communities.

Legacy Youth Development Institute