Rising Leaders is our award-winning flagship program, which is the first program we launched in the summer of 2017. It is a dynamic three-year leadership incubator program that is part internship, part rite-of-passage program. Participants advance through Rising Leaders in leadership cohorts, consisting of young Black men from across the city of Portland, beginning the summer after their Freshman year of high school. 

Each year of Rising Leaders develops leadership, interpersonal, and professional skills among participants, with each program year building on the previous year’s principles. Participants are known as community ambassadors and are paid as part of their program participation. In year one, ambassadors learn foundational leadership and professional development skills based on weekly themes including the development of self, law and community safety, business, and outdoor leadership among other themes.

In year two, they are placed in a professional internship at a premier business in Portland. In the capstone third year of the program, ambassadors travel to Ghana, West Africa for a two-week international leadership immersion experience, the Black Star Homecoming Expedition.