With offices in Valley Forge, Philadelphia, and Reading, Pennsylvania, the Institute for Leadership Education, Advancement, and Development, Inc. (or I-LEAD) is a Pennsylvania nonprofit school with 501(c)3 status that has served as a force for community leadership development since 1995. David Castro is the President of I-LEAD and its Chief Executive Officer. In 1991, Mr. Castro joined the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, where he assisted District Attorney Lynne Abraham in creating the Public Nuisance Task Force, and served as its first Chief. The Task Force was the first inter-agency enforcement program of its kind targeting crack houses and nuisance liquor establishments. Alongside neighborhood leaders, David worked in some of the most distressed neighborhoods in Philadelphia to resolve community problems. This productive collaboration led to a recognition that the key to changing a communitys prospects lay in cultivating the leadership skills and leadership capacities from within that community.

1995

I-LEAD is a community-based nonprofit school that works to improve local quality of life by helping to strengthen citizens as effective community leaders. Focusing on Pennsylvania's most challenged communities with respect to economic success, educational achievement, health status, and safety, our vision is to increase human capacity in these communities, to enable individuals to live up to their potential, and their communities to benefit from the increased capacity.

This is accomplished by focusing on three central goals: ■Helping our students build and practice a repertoire of important leadership skills—the skills entailed in effective dialogue, negotiation, creative leadership, systems thinking, speaking as a leader, and ethical leadership. ■Helping our students master certain bodies of supplemental information required for effective leadership, including knowledge of public systems, private systems, political leadership, group dynamics, and understanding technology. ■Assisting our students, partners and clients in envisioning and achieving tangible community-based leadership initiatives, in the areas of community leadership, education, community health, and technology proficiency. 1. Helping its students build and practice a repertoire of important leadership skills—the skills entailed in effective dialogue, negotiation, creative leadership, systems thinking, speaking as a leader, and ethical leadership. 2. Helping its students master certain bodies of supplemental information required for effective leadership, including knowledge of public systems, private systems, political leadership, group dynamics, and understanding technology. 3. Assisting its students, partners and clients in envisioning and achieving tangible community-based leadership initiatives, in the areas of community leadership, education, community health, and technology proficiency.