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The Founder and CEO Doesn't Live Where He Grew Up

The Limitation: Mountaintop Founder and CEO Reed Shafer-Ray grew up in Oklahoma but lives in Washington DC. In this way, Shafer-Ray currently is not serving the community he knows best, limiting his shared experience with Fellows and hosts.

More Detail: Shafer-Ray spent his childhood in Oklahoma before going to Harvard in Massachusetts for his undergraduate education. While serving as Co-Founder of Lead For America, a nonprofit helping young people become leaders in their home communities in the United States, Shafer-Ray moved to Dodge City, Kansas for 18 months to live closer to where he and another Lead For America Co-Founder grew up in order to better live the mission. Shafer-Ray moved to Washington DC when founding Mountaintop because of the enormous network of potential partners, funders, and relevant experts who are in the area, helping to strengthen the organization. Shafer-Ray also has chosen to live in Washington DC to be close to his extended family and his romantic partner whom are firmly rooted in the DC area. To stay connected to Oklahoma, Shafer-Ray provides monthly leadership coaching sessions for a local student at the high school he attended and visits Oklahoma several times a year. Shafer-Ray plans to continue to grow his service to Oklahoma over the years, even as he plans to continue to live in DC.

Mountaintop's Learning and Commitment: Mountaintop has learned that personal circumstances and commitments can sometimes make it very difficult to live in one community for one's entire life, and in fact, sometimes someone's full impact potential can only be realized when they are able to work and live in other places. Mountaintop does not promote the idea that everyone should live and work where they grow up, but rather that for communities to flourish, we must support the highest potential local leaders already committed to their communities to create the change that they think is best.

 

Further, Mountaintop believes in a necessary"division of labor" whereby great leaders are needed across diverse fields like business, government, civil society, activism, etc., just as it is important to have great leaders at the hyper-local, sub-national, national, and international levels. While Mountaintop recognizes that there is some inherent limitation if its Founder and CEO is not doing direct local leadership work like its Fellows and hosts, Mountaintop acknowledges that Mountaintop's distinct role of serving as an international hub and incubator for such leaders requires specific assets that are supported by physical proximity to relevant international networks. 

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