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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – For Lisa Long, CEO of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation, Leadership Mahoning Valley helped transform a new community into a place she could call home.
Long applied to the program in 2013 on the recommendation of her employer at the time, The Rich Center for Autism at Youngstown State University. She and her family had moved to the Mahoning Valley the previous fall, and she saw the program as an opportunity to learn about her new hometown while building connections throughout the community.
A Chicago native who “fell in love with a Columbiana County boy,” Long moved to the area so her husband could teach at the high school he had attended. The couple eventually bought the house where he grew up.
“So, the move brought him fully home,” Long said. “Programs like Leadership Mahoning Valley helped this area become home for me too.”
Through Leadership Mahoning Valley, Long learned about the region’s past, present and future, gaining a better understanding of the forces that shaped the community and the people working to move it forward.
“There is a special energy in this community that LMV helped ground me in,” she said.
One experience in particular continues to influence her more than a decade later.
During a tour of the Juvenile Justice Center, Long remembers seeing young men looking out from their cells and thinking about how easily different circumstances could have changed the course of their lives.
“I remember vividly, to this day, the faces of those young men looking out from their cells and thinking that could be my son and how much of a person’s future is dependent purely on the circumstances they were born into,” she said.
The experience helped deepen her empathy and continues to inform her work today, particularly when considering funding for community programs that serve young people.
The program also gave her a deeper understanding of the Mahoning Valley’s history, politics and institutions, knowledge she has carried into subsequent leadership positions.
That understanding has helped inform her decision-making throughout her career, while the relationships she formed through the program have remained equally valuable.
Long was elected class coordinator during her time in Leadership Mahoning Valley and believes the experience contributed to her subsequent career progression, including being named one of the region’s 25 Under 35 award recipients in 2014.
“To this day I’m still friends with many of the people I did the program with and do business with quite a few of them,” she said.
Those relationships are particularly valuable in her current role. Beyond knowing her classmates personally, Long gained a better understanding of the organizations they represented, which helps when considering potential partnerships and funding decisions.
For Long, that ability to bring together people who might otherwise never meet is one of Leadership Mahoning Valley’s greatest strengths.
“LMV brings together for-profit and nonprofit leaders who would’ve normally not met so that they can create relationships to improve our community,” she said.
Long believes those relationships can play an important role in retaining people in the Mahoning Valley. By introducing participants to organizations, opportunities and “hidden gems” they may not have known existed, the program gives them more reasons to become invested in the region.
“People stay in communities where they have personal and professional connections, so I think LMV helps keep people living and working in the Valley,” she said.
For those considering applying, Long recommends talking with someone who has completed the program or serves on its board to better understand its value. If employer support is needed, she suggests asking an alumnus or board member to help make the case.
Now both a graduate and Leadership Mahoning Valley board member, Long hopes the organization continues strengthening its core program while creating additional opportunities for alumni, current participants and prospective applicants to become involved.
She would also like to see the return of the Youth Leadership Program as another way to encourage younger generations to build connections with the Mahoning Valley.
“I think it will help entice our younger generations to consider staying in the Valley after graduation and/or moving back after college,” Long said. “I know I personally have two teenagers in my home that I would love to have stick around!”
By maintaining those connections, she believes Leadership Mahoning Valley can continue building the relationships that strengthen the region and make it a place where people want to stay.
“LMV brings together leaders that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to connect,” Long said.
