The onPrinciple Becoming Peacemakers Learning Cohort is a twelve-month leadership formation experience followed by a six-month leadership experiment designed to equip YMCA leaders at all levels to lead with courage, humility, and faithfulness in the work of peacemaking. Rooted in the YMCA's Christian heritage and open to leaders of all faith traditions and those who are open to exploring matters of faith, participants journey alongside a trusted community of peers while exploring what it means to allow Christian principles reflected in the YMCA mission to shape leadership practice in relationships, organizations, and communities.

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Participants learn within a diverse learning community intentionally shaped by different lived experiences, perspectives, and professional contexts. Through monthly virtual learning, guided reflection, authentic dialogue, experiential learning, and practical application, leaders cultivate the character, relationships, and leadership practices needed to become peacemakers. Grounded in the Telos Principles and Practices of Peacemaking, selected readings and media, and the practice of self-differentiated leadership, the cohort explores how Christian principles can shape courageous leadership amid difference, conflict, and complexity.

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A defining feature of the experience is two Sankofa Journeys. Sankofa, an African concept meaning "to go back and retrieve what is valuable," invites leaders to learn from the past in order to move faithfully into the future. The first journey takes participants to Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma, and other significant sites across the American South, where they explore how YMCA leaders and communities became peacemakers during the Civil Rights Movement. The second journey takes participants to Minneapolis, where they engage YMCA and community leaders who are navigating today's challenges of polarization, reconciliation, and community flourishing. Together, these experiences invite participants to examine how Christian principles can shape leadership amid tension, uncertainty, and hope.

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Throughout the cohort, participants apply their learning within their own YMCA and community context. During the final six months, each participant designs and implements a contextual leadership experiment that addresses a real organizational or community challenge. The experience culminates in a virtual shared learning session where participants reflect on their experiments, celebrate growth, and discern how the practices of peacemaking can continue to shape faithful, mission centered leadership.

 

The cohort experience includes:

• Orientation and launch process 

• Monthly virtual learning gatherings 

• Sankofa Immersion I — American South 

• Continued virtual integration and reflection 

• Sankofa Immersion II — Minneapolis 

• Symposium introducing leadership experiments

• Six-month experiment and application phase 

• Virtual reconvening to share learning, insights, and organizational impact

 

Participants will:

• Allow Christian principles reflected in the YMCA mission to shape leadership practice 

• Develop greater capacity for peacemaking, reconciliation, and courageous conversation 

• Strengthen self-differentiated leadership practices 

• Learn from leaders and communities engaged in healing and flourishing 

• Build trusted relationships across diverse leadership contexts 

• Apply learning through contextual leadership experiments 

• Deepen awareness of how history and systems shape present realities 

• Strengthen Christian presence within organizations and communities 

 

This is not simply a leadership program, it is a formative journey—one that invites leaders to become practitioners of reconciliation, healing, and flourishing in the communities they serve.

onPrinciple plans to pilot this cohort in 2027 with a small group of 10 leaders whose experience and feedback will help shape the future development of the experience.