There is agreement that community leadership should involve and empower community residents to participate in decision making and develop their own leadership skills. The study identified many leadership-building programs, models, and strategies used with immigrants and refugees. The programs can be described with reference to variables such as sponsoring organizations, internal versus external focus, targeted participants, geographic scope, leadership focus, leadership or learning model, structure, topics for skill development, and leadership-building techniques. A basic differentiation is whether programs focus internally on staff, board members, and program volunteers, or externally on clients, activists, and other community residents, or whether they have a dual focus. Programs vary in the types of leaders they are trying to develop and their relationship to a theoretical or practical model .
Some projects begin with personal empowerment and then prepare individuals for civic participation.
Some emphasize advocacy. Some focus on leadership through community organizing, often around specific areas such as workers rights or parent involvement in education. Other programs seek to strengthen nonprofit board or staff leadership skills. Programs may be based on a defined program model such as Paulo Freire s popular education or other community-building approaches. Some borrow from many different leadership experiences.