"Blueprint is a great (and fun) opportunity for personal and professional development.At the beginning of the class, you'll share a handshake and exchange courtesies with bright and successful professionals in Jacksonville. By the end of the program, you'll roll up your sleeves and work alongside your newfound friends to improve your town. Blueprint is truly a chance to 'do well by doing good'."

Galen Bauer, Esq. Blueprint for Leadership Class of 2009

History of Blueprint for Leadership

A trained, equipped and engaged board of directors can mean the difference between effectiveness and failure for nonprofit organizations. For more than twenty years, HandsOn Jacksonville has mobilized, equipped and deployed leaders as interns on area nonprofit boards. Blueprint for Leadership was launched in 1988 as Project Blueprint in response to a Kellogg Foundation study which indicated a shocking disparity between the percentage of income given by minorities to nonprofit organizations and the representation of minorities on governing boards of the same organizations. "Project Blueprint" was created by HandsOn Jacksonville to identify, recruit, train and place minorities on nonprofit boards. The program experienced such tremendous success that in 1997 HandsOn Jacksonville broadened the mission locally, and it became known as Blueprint for Leadership. With the change came a corresponding movement of inclusion to reflect a true representation of the Northeast Florida population. Since the program's inception in 1988, more than 800 people have graduated from Blueprint for Leadership and have interned on more than 50 local nonprofit boards of directors.