Signature Fellows Program

The 2025 LGC Signature Fellows Program Application has closed. The 2026 application cycle will open in October 2024.

Candidates are required to complete an online application, which includes two required letters of recommendation. For candidates who have a disability, please email our team to request accommodation(s) to ensure full participation in the process.

To learn more about applying, click here.
For information about sponsoring a candidate, click here.
For information about nominating a candidate, click here.

Each year, a diverse group of Chicago's most promising professionals and leaders are selected as Leadership Greater Chicago Fellows. The Signature Fellows Program© is the area’s premier civic leadership development program, immersing participants in the major socioeconomic issues facing the City of Chicago and the Greater Chicago Region. Since 1983, the LGC Signature Fellows Program has equipped participants with the resources they need to understand how decisions are made, how complex policies are shaped, and how to influence meaningful change. Using the city as a classroom, LGC Fellows learn through interactions with private, public and nonprofit decision-makers, and work as a group to develop critical thinking, analytical, governance and leadership skills.

Through retreats, full-day seminars, site visits, discussion groups, conversations with leaders and experts, service projects and cultural events, Fellows seek to better understand the systems that influence how Chicago and the region function, as well as how an individual’s personal values, biases and approaches to working with others can shape their impact and the outcomes they achieve. Together, LGC Fellows explore critical community challenges, examine themselves as leaders, and build transformative relationships of trust and collaboration. 

LGC provides reasonable accommodations for any participant who self-identifies as a person with a disability (visible, invisible or acquired). 

WHY LEADERSHIP GREATER CHICAGO?

The Network – As an LGC Fellow, you will gain access to high-level professionals in all sectors and join an engaged network of nearly 1,500 accomplished leaders who are dedicated to improving the Greater Chicago Region.

The Knowledge – Fellows immerse themselves in an intensive 10-month long exploration of current socioeconomic issues that provides the foundation for a lifelong commitment to civic engagement. Through dynamic education and experiental activities, Fellows gain first-hand insights from discussions with leaders at the forefront of social change.

The Insights – Fellows learn from a diversity of opinions, styles and world views, and develop the capacity to approach and break down complex problems to drive transformative change in effective and collaborative ways.

The LGC Signature Fellows Program is an intensive, 10-month long engagement that requires significant investment from both the Fellow and their sponsoring organization. Acceptance into the Program is contingent on a commitment to the following requirements:

• Attendance at the Opening Retreat (September 12-13, 2024) and Closing Retreat (June 5-6, 2025)
• Attendance at eight First Friday Sessions (the first Friday of each month, excluding holidays; October 2024 – May 2025) listed below: 
  -October 18, 2024 
  -November 8, 2024
  -December 5 and 6, 2024
  -January 10, 2025
  -February 7, 2025
  -March 7, 2025
  -April 11, 2025
  -May 2, 2025
• Attendance at five of the seven monthly hybrid Leadership Series sessions (once a month excluding January; generally Thursdays; October 2024 – May 2025)
• Active engagement and participation in supplemental programming, including Neighborhood Exploration Groups, site visits, cultural events and social activities
• A financial contribution from your sponsoring organization ($20,000 for private sponsors and large nonprofits; amount scaled for smaller nonprofits, entrepreneurs and government institutions) due by August 1, 2024
• An individual financial contribution of $1,500 due by August 1, 2024

COST
A financial contribution from the sponsoring organization of $20,000 (for private sponsors and large nonprofits; amount scaled for smaller nonprofits, government, educational institutions and entrepreneurs), and an individual contribution of $1,500, is for approximately 200 hours of leadership development, individual coaching and access to the LGC network and events. Payment in full for both contributions is required before the start of the Program.

QUESTIONS? 
Please contact our team at programs@lgcchicago.org or 312.565.0300.

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