EDC Emerging Leaders · students and emerging professionals in service

Growth & Opportunity · Pilot · First cohort 2027

EDC Emerging Leaders™

A leadership and service program for students and emerging professionals. Real responsibility. Real mentorship. Real work in support of veterans, service members, and military families.

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The core idea

You don’t have to have served in uniform to serve those who did.

EDC stays centered on veterans, service members, Guard and Reserve, and military families. Emerging Leaders participants don’t need to be military-connected. Their work directly strengthens the Foundation’s ability to serve them.

What Emerging Leaders is

A program built to serve the mission from both sides.

Emerging Leaders develops students and emerging professionals through real responsibility on real EDC work, alongside mentors, community partners, and Foundation leadership. Participants aren’t observing. They’re building the programs, the partnerships, the stories, and the systems that reach the veteran and military-family community EDC exists to serve.

The program was designed so both sides compound. Participants leave with leadership experience, professional relationships, capstone work, and a stronger foundation for whatever comes next in their career. The Foundation gains capacity, storytelling, community reach, and a next generation of leaders who understand what it means to stand behind those who serve.

  • Intended impact

    Build EDC’s capacity.

    Participants take on real work that measurably expands what the Foundation can deliver for the community.

  • Intended impact

    Teach military culture.

    Participants come out with real understanding of what service means, what veterans and military families experience, and why the community matters.

  • Intended impact

    Connect to the neighborhood.

    Work happens in the same Chicago neighborhoods EDC serves, alongside veterans, families, partners, and community leaders.

How the program works

Discover. Understand. Explore. Build. Lead. Serve. Deliver. Launch.

  1. 01

    Discover

    Your strengths, interests, and goals.

  2. 02

    Understand

    EDC, military culture, and the community we serve.

  3. 03

    Explore

    Professionals, mentors, and community leaders.

  4. 04

    Build

    Real EDC projects, not busywork.

  5. 05

    Lead

    Own it. Present it. Improve it.

  6. 06

    Serve

    Your talent, in support of the mission.

  7. 07

    Deliver

    A capstone that measurably advances EDC.

  8. 08

    Launch

    Portfolio, relationships, references, next step.

Functional tracks

Pick where your talent goes to work.

  • Programs & Community

    Design and run programs, events, and community programming.

  • Partnerships & Development

    Research prospects, support fundraising, build relationships.

  • Marketing & Storytelling

    Content, social, campaigns, and the human story behind the work.

  • Operations & Impact

    Systems, metrics, and turning ideas into repeatable programs.

  • Innovation & Strategy

    Research, experiments, and what EDC builds next.

Where it started

Built with Chicago schools. Built for a national mission.

Emerging Leaders was shaped inside Chicago classrooms, working with students already on their way toward service or already tied to it through family. The gap was easy to see. Schools wanted somewhere for students to come back to when the transition got hard. Students heading into uniform, or growing up in a military-connected home, had very little built around them before, during, or after.

The Foundation designed the program to close that gap at scale. Give students a real role in the work. Pair them with mentors who’ve lived both the service and the civilian side. Put the mission of supporting veterans and military families in front of them while they’re deciding who they want to become. The classroom was the starting point. The reach is national.

The first cohort launches in 2027, built around high school students stepping into service or already tied to it. One enlisting in the Air Force. Another joining because his family is military-connected and he wants to serve that community directly. The pilot proves the model before it scales.

What the program leaves you with

A stronger connection to the community you served.

The point of Emerging Leaders isn’t to bring talent inside a nonprofit. It’s to show a generation of students and emerging professionals why the military community matters, teach them how to show up for it, and put them shoulder-to-shoulder with veterans, families, and community members doing the work in Chicago.

From there, everyone chooses how they stay connected. Some come back for events. Some mentor the next cohort. Some carry what they learned into their careers, their neighborhoods, and their own communities.

EDC is also building a Young Professionals Committee · a way to stay involved by showing up, volunteering, bringing your network, and lending your skills to the mission. No governance, no fiduciary duty. Just committed young pros supporting the work.

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Get involved

Three ways in.