The overarching goal of the Blind Leaders Development Program is to increase successful employment outcomes, upward mobility, and leadership attainment of people who are blind or have low vision.

This is a long-term goal and is challenging to measure or attribute just to the Blind Leaders Development Program. However, it is our belief that with the right experiences and opportunities, Blind Leaders can assume higher levels of leadership and authority. As these individuals increase their influence, they will in turn provide opportunities for future leaders with vision loss to learn, grow, and excel.

In the long term, the Blind Leaders Development Program creates a growing pool of blind leaders who can effectively assume higher levels of responsibility and serve as examples and mentors for other individuals who are blind or have low vision.

Long-term Program Goals

Goal 1 – Post program completion, are skills, and knowledge from the program being used?

Question - Do Fellows use the skills and knowledge learned from the program's one-year and three years post-program completion?

  • 80% of Fellows will report that they use 80% of their leadership skills checklist, developed based on what they have learned in the program after one year of program completion.

  • 70% of Fellows will report that they use 80% of their leadership skills checklist, developed based on what they have learned in the program after three years of program completion.

Measurement tools: longitudinal survey and LinkedIn profiles

Goal 2 – Post program completion, what sort of leadership, professional, and mentor roles are participants in?

Questions:

  • Do Fellows participate in leadership positions, professionally and/or in the community, one year and three years after program completion?
  • What is the current status of former Fellows and Mentors, and their mentorship relationships? For example, are they still in touch with their mentor/fellow? How often? Are they still continuing in any type of mentor/fellow relationship?
  • Have Fellows experienced any changes in employment or secured a higher level of leadership professionally or in the community?

Thresholds:

  • 80% of Fellows will report a professional or community leadership position after one year of program completion.
  • 70% of Fellows will report a professional or community leadership position after three years of program completion.
  • 80% of Fellows will report participating in a mentor relationship, as either the mentor or mentee after one year of program completion.
  • 70% of Fellows will report participating in a mentor relationship, as either the mentor or mentee after three years of program completion.

Measurement tools: longitudinal survey and LinkedIn.

Goal 3 – Long term growth

Question – Is the Blind Leaders Development Program growing over time? How many individuals are applying to be Fellows? And, is this number increasing each year?

The number of applicants from Fellows will be measured each year, with the goal of increasing our applicant pool by five percent each year.

Measurement tool: number of Fellow applications submitted to the program

Short-Term Program Outcomes

Knowledge, attitude, or skills to be achieved by the end of the program: Fellows are able to successfully apply learned leadership skills in real-world situations

  • 90% of Fellows successfully complete all Google Classroom modules.
  • 85% of Fellows receive a satisfactory evaluation from their Mentor on a standard program rubric at the end of each cohort.
  • Fellows show growth and acquisition of leadership behaviors as measured via self-evaluation of the 30 LPI behaviors

Participants will be able to recognize behaviors that relate to leadership and can identify those behaviors in themselves and others. As measured by:

  • Completion of modules and/or activities in Google Classroom
  • Pre/Post Program survey
  • Self-evaluation of the 30 LPI behaviors
  • Successful completion of Blind Leaders

Longevity of program and participant investment:

  • Fellows and Mentors will recommend Blind Leaders to friends, colleagues, or their networks.
  • Fellows report achieving their personal leadership goals upon completion of the program.
  • Fellows and Mentors report plans to continue relationships established while in the program

Goal 1 – Achievement of personal leadership goals

With an exit interview, 90% of Fellows and Mentors report that they have achieved the primary, personally set goal at the completion of the program. Mentors report that they have achieved the primary, and personally set a goal with the completion of the program.

Measurement tool: exit interview

Goal 2 – Likelihood to recommend Blind Leaders

At the completion of Blind Leaders, on a post-program survey, 90% of Fellows and Mentors report at least a seven (on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest) that they would recommend Blind Leaders to their visually impaired friends, colleagues, and/or networks.

Measurement tools: post-program survey, exit interview

Goal 3 – Ongoing engagement with Fellows and Mentors

At the completion of Blind Leaders, on a post-program survey, 80% of Fellows and Mentors agree or strongly agree with the statement "I will continue to engage with Fellows and/or Mentors I have met in the program because they support my personal growth."

Measurement tools: post-program survey, exit interview

Inaugural Cohort Outcomes

(March 2020 through April 2021)

Fifteen Fellows and fifteen Mentors completed the AFB Blind Leaders Development program in our first cohort. We conducted the entire program virtually, due to the Coronavirus. This is a snapshot of the Inaugural Cohort and what they accomplished through their involvement in the AFB Blind Leaders Development Program.

  • 90 percent of participants engaged in leadership behaviors most commonly associated with effective leadership: treating others with dignity and respect, following through on promises and commitments, seeking out challenging opportunities, and exemplifying personal behaviors they expect of others.
  • 90 percent of participants achieved at least one of their personal goals.
  • 90 percent of participants saw an increase in their scores on the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) assessment.

In addition, we recognized the need to add goals for mentors to complement the goals we set for Fellows. We added the following program goals accordingly: * 90 percent of Mentors report that they would recommend emerging leaders in the program to their senior leadership, colleagues, and networks * 90 percent of Mentors report that they would recommend mentoring in this program to their friends, colleagues, and/or networks

We are proud of the diversity of the cohort of Fellows and Mentors. The Fellows in the inaugural cohort were 44% male and 56% female, while the Mentors were 56% male and 44% female. Together, this creates a group that is split equally on gender identification.

The Fellows in the cohort were racially diverse as well, with three of the fellows identifying as Asian, three fellows identifying as Black, one fellow identifying as Hispanic, and nine fellows identifying as White.

In addition, the Mentors represented a variety of employment sectors and experiences, coming from corporate (13%), education (13%), government (31%), non-profit (31%), and other (13%).