Board Fellow Program - World in You

Cultivate your leadership for a positive impact on society

A six-month action-learning program for business and nonprofit leaders to foster cross-sector collaboration

Nurture co-creative relationships with leaders across different sectors

Cultivate board-level leadership by engaging with nonprofit management and board governance

Gain tangible nonprofit management and board governance experience with transforming nonprofits

To solve complex social issues, it is critical for various actors in society to bring each other’s perspectives, experiences, and resources together. Engaging in such a process also presents a precious opportunity to hone your leadership to impact society positively.

What makes you a leader who positively impacts society? We believe it critical to perceive changes that occur in society at the systems level; draw a vision that inspires people across boundaries such as organizations, sectors, or countries; nurture relationships for team members to unleash their potential; let go of existing frameworks; and own the issues to make the world better.

The Board Fellow Program, launched in 2021, aims to cultivate such leadership for business and nonprofit leaders. In this six-month virtual action-learning program, the participants engage with critical discussion on nonprofit management and board governance and seek collaboration to solve complex social issues.

Why board governance?: The board is a critical decision-making and governing institution of an organization. While many people may think of governance as control and supervision, the board plays a consequential role in facilitating collective leadership for social good. World in You translated and published Governance as Leadership in Japanese to convey this message. We aim to explore and practice Governance for Impact – governance that creates social value by utilizing the perspectives and resources of diverse people in organizational decision-making and mission realization.

Issue Focus

2021: Inclusion & Empowerment – Advancing well-being and work-life-parenting balance for mothers
2022: Inclusion & Empowerment – Uplifting women’s career, work, and businesses

1.　Work with nonprofits in transition: Cultivate your leadership by contributing as a quasi board member of a nonprofit, which would benefit from external points of view to go through their organizational transition period.
2.　Use your strengths across boundaries: Rediscover your strengths and weakness and hone your communication skills by working with diverse participants across different organizations and sectors.
3.　Apply systems perspectives to social issues and organizations: Recognize complex social issues as systems and unlock more effective and impactful solutions by working with multiple organizations in similar fields and learning practical frameworks for social changes.
4.　Work on real and ongoing social issues and nonprofit management issues: Think, feel, and sense important societal and managerial issues through working with nonprofit leaders.
5.　Connect with like-minded people for social good: Spend half a year together to understand each other personally and professionally. This will be a foundation for a long-term relationship to serve on nonprofit boards or co-create projects.

Board Fellow Program consists of three aspects: 1) Relationship building based on a compassionate, holistic understanding of each other, 2) Skills development to engage with often abstract, managerial and governance discussion, and 3) Learning about systems-level understanding about social issues and solution approaches. The participants engage with managerial and governance discussions as if they were external board members to the participating nonprofits.
It takes time and trust relationships for effective and sustainable collaborations to emerge across different sectors. That’s why World in You continues to nurture community with the participants even after the program.

1

Monthly Joint Session

Learn about the management and governance of organizations with social missions, social issues, and solution approaches through lectures and group discussions.
2

Monthly quasi-board meetings

Each participating nonprofit brings organizational challenges to discuss with business leaders.
3

Participant-led topic session

Participants can take the initiative and organize discussion topics of their interests such as leadership and corporate social responsibility.
4

Open-to-public events

World in You invites speakers from Japan and overseas on social change, boards, governance, or leadership.
5

After the program

Participants can stay in touch and collaborate through our community platform.

A diverse group of people naturally mix and respect each other’s uniqueness. To achieve a society where no one is left behind, I hope more and more people will learn about nonprofits’ work and perspectives to address social issues as issues that affect them, and take action through this program.

Seiji Yasubuchi
Chief Executive Officer
AXA Japan
Integrating social and business is increasingly needed recently, but there is still a significant shortage of human resources and experience to support it.
I am sure that this program will be critical to connect the social and business and evolve the two.

Haruo Miyagi
Former Executive Director
ETIC.
The Board Fellow Program is an essential and rare program that includes "internalization of vision," "ecosystem perspective," and "practice of cross-sector collaboration" – all are necessary for leaders facing complex social issues. I am convinced that the impact generated from here is not small.

Noriko Ichigi
Chief Executive Officer
Orange Page Co., Ltd.
I hope that organizations addressing various social issues locally and producing results can reach as many people as possible. I am sure that integrating the social and business sector like this program will be a major driving force for that.

Tomoko Shirai
Executive Director
Japan Association of New Public