Serving Leaders

30 Innovations in 30 Years

Over these 30 years, PLF has inspired and equipped leaders to exercise their influence in service to God's intention that cities be places where human beings flourish. Hundreds of initiatives, large and small, have been birthed out of PLF's leadership.

Here are 30 of these initiatives presented chronologically from 1978 to the present—30 innovations to celebrate 30 years—which give a flavor of PLF's service to visionary leaders and the impact this has had on the Pittsburgh region.

1. The Labor Management Prayer Breakfast
   —In our first year, founding PLP President Reid Carpenter recognized the economic impact of labor-management relationships, and worked in partnership with Wayne Alderson to create the Prayer Breakfast to bring hundreds of corporate and union leaders together each year to pray together, eat together and build stronger human relationships between themselves.close
2. Coalition for Addictive Diseases
   —Drug addictions, especially impacting teenagers, was emerging as a new devastation in the late '70's. PLF joined forces with Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski to convene the addictions and treatment community who together built multiple treatment and public education services to address the growing crisis.close
3. Dale Craig Ministry
   —An early youth ministry leader in Pittsburgh, Dale had been working with Young Life since 1962. PLF joined Dale Craig in establishing the organizational foundation for his high-impact ministries inside the public high schools of Mars and the North Hills.close
4. Saltworks Theater Company
   —Founded on the belief that live theater can powerfully impact children and youth, PLF joined with Kate McConnell and Gillette Elvgren in 1981 to found Saltworks to address important issues such as sexual abuse, drugs and alcohol use, and many other themes. To date, Saltworks has touched the lives of over 2 million audience members.
   www.saltworks.org close
5. Pittsburgh Youth Network (now called Pittsburgh Kids Foundation)
   —Building on founding PLF President Reid Carpenter's many years of youth leadership with Young Life, PLF created and built the Pittsburgh Youth Network, placing it under the leadership of the late Dr. Chuck Rosemeyer, to serve the new field of "youth ministry" that emerged in the late '70's and early '80's. PYN brought youth leaders together monthly for training and support, and led joint youth camps at Laurelville, Jumonville and Surf City, taking nearly 100,000 middle school and high school youth to camp over its lifetime. PYN camps introduce youth to Jesus Christ, and connect these youth to local congregations who can support and nurture their growth. Today, Pittsburgh Kids Foundation is led by Dr. Brad Henderson.
   www.pittsburghkidsfoundation.org close
6. Pittsburgh Coalition against Pornography (now called "Wholehearted")
   —PLF gave support and organizational capability to Dorn Checkley to create PCAP to fight the rise of illegal pornography and the destruction that the pornography industry creates in peoples' lives. Today, Dorn and Amy Scheuring work together on the mission of Wholehearted.
   www.wholehearted.org close
7. East Liberty Family Health Care Center
   —PLF put its resources behind the vision of a young man aspiring to become a doctor and serve the poor. Dr. David Hall founded ELF Health Care Center to "witness to God's love, known in Jesus Christ, by offering quality, whole-person health care to all, especially the poor." Today, tens of thousands of patient visits are served each year.
   www.elfhcc.com close
8. Communities In Schools
   —Nationally founded by Bill Millikin, a Pittsburgh native and friend of PLF's founder, Reid Carpenter, PLF hosted the establishment of a Communities in Schools chapter in Pittsburgh to connect "needed community resources with schools to help young people successfully learn, stay in school, and prepare for life."
   www.cisnet.org close
9. Pittsburgh Prayer Network
   —Joining with prayer leaders Ernie Frederick, Katie Burt, Rev. Jim Snyder and others, PLF founded the Pittsburgh Prayer Network to orchestrated focused prayer efforts for Pittsburgh, for individual neighborhoods and for key events in the life of the city.
   www.prayforpittsburgh.org close
10. Garfield Jubilee Association
    —Under the leadership of Mr. Wheeler Winstead and Joanne Monroe, PLF created Garfield Jubilee to help members of the community empower themselves to develop the community of Garfield in Pittsburgh.
    www.garfieldjubilee.org close
11. World Vision International Distribution Center
    —Seeing an opportunity to marry corporate gifts-in-kind philanthropy with World Vision's international mission to the poor, Dick Johnson of Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation created the World Vision Distribution Center in Pittsburgh in 1987, operating it in partnership with World Vision for fourteen years. This facility has received 47,000 hours of volunteer service, delivering over 7 million pounds of needed items to the world's neediest people.
    http://tinyurl.com/wvgikpgh close
12. Cross Trainers
    —Under the leadership of the son of PLF Founder Reid Carpenter—Mr. Donald James Carpenter—Cross trainers was launched to provide urban youth with summer in-city camping experiences where arts education, sports, quality role models and the Christian gospel were provided.close
13. Tempering the Valley of Steel
    —PLF joined the vision of Mrs. Pat Bukowski in founding the TVS Coalition to bring community, political and faith leaders together in the Monangahela Valley to address the devastations of alcohol and other drug addiction problems there.
    http://tinyurl.com/tvscoalition close
14. International Urban Associates (now Bakke Graduate University)
    —PLF President Reid Carpenter supported Dr. Raymond Bakke in organizing Bakke's international urban ministry efforts. Formerly leader of the urban arm of the Lausanne Conference for World Evangelization, Bakke gathered urban leaders together in cities around the world to collaborate and to exchange capabilities and models for kingdom transformation. IUA has gone through several stages of growth, and is now the Bakke Graduate University in Seattle.
    www.bgu.edu close
15. Leadership Foundations
    —Building from the work of Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, created in 1978, Leadership Foundations of America was founded to replicate successful approaches in cities everywhere. Leadership foundations now exist in over 30 cities, serve 4,400 community-based and institutional partners, utilize over 12,000 volunteers, serve nearly 400,000 persons directly each year, and benefit over 4 million more people benefit through our partners. PLF founder Reid Carpenter led Leadership Foundations for eight years. David Hillis now serves as LF's president and CEO.
    www.leadershipfoundations.org close
16. Joe Bellante Ministry
    —Recognizing the positive impact that former mafia leader, pro wrestler, and football player Joe Bellante had on the youth of Garfield and East Liberty, PLF created the Joe Bellante Ministry to support Joe's Christian ministry on the streets and with the youth of Pittsburgh's East End. close
17. Coalition for Leadership Education and Advocacy for Recovery
    —PLF support Rev. David Else and Dr. Karen Plavan in expanding the work of the Coalition for Addictive Diseases, renamed CLEAR. CLEAR convened regional addictions treatment and prevention specialists to exchange resources and to build collaborations for improving impact on the disease of addictions.close
18. Mentoring Training Empowering Communities
    —PLF supported the founder of Garfield Jubilee, Mr. Wheeler Winstead, in leveraging his seasoned community development expertise and his business training in the founding of MTEC. For half a dozen years, MTEC was based alongside PLF, focusing both on Pittsburgh as well as nationally. Wheeler's work is now based in the nation's capitol, serving clients in the U.S. and internationally.
    www.mtecllc.com close
19. Pittsburgh Urban Leadership Service Experience
    —PLF came alongside Dr. John Stahl-Wert in 1994 in founding the PULSE program. PULSE located top university graduate artists, entrepreneurs and community development specialists, relocating them to Pittsburgh for a one-year post-university placement in their field of specialty. PULSE also provides weekly civic and world view seminars to prepare these young persons to be excellent contributors to Pittsburgh.
    www.mennocorps.org close
20. Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation Training Institute
    —In 1995, John Stahl-Wert leveraged the work he did to found PULSE by establishing the organizational training arm of the Foundation and to create a national training office for Leadership Foundations. Dr. Stahl-Wert stepped down from the Training Institute in 2000 to assume the presidency of PLF. Leadership Foundations today operates the national Training Institute.close
21. Houses of Worship (now ForMinistry)
    —As a part of the PLF Training Institute, Stahl-Wert led the creation of Houses of Worship, a national web resource to provide churches with editable web pages and to share technical assistance and resources with each other. Houses of Worship was transferred to the American Bible which has grown this resource to 25,000 churches.
    www.forministry.com close
22. Pittsburgh Community Storehouse
    —Leveraging their expertise in having built World Vision's International GIK Distribution Center, Dick Johnson and Craig Esterly established the Pittsburgh Community Storehouse to distribute needed school supplies, clothing, furniture and other durable goods to over two hundred area non-profit organizations. PCS distributed over $40 million of such product.close
23. City as Parish
    —Also an extension of the PLF Training Institute, Stahl-Wert created City As Parish to provide training to local congregations in equipping their members for kingdom ministry and to bring these congregations together for joint ministry activities.close
24. The Union Project
    —PLF joined two alumni of the Pittsburgh Urban Leadership Service Experience, Jessica King and Justin Rothshank, to found The Union Project. Through the restoration and reuse of the abandoned former Union Baptist Church, Union Project provides a gathering and working space for artists, community builders and people of faith.
    www.unionproject.org close
25. PLF Donor Advised Funds
    —To serve donors who want their legacy gifts to contribute to the work of Christ's kingdom, PLF established a Donor Advised Fund program that makes quarterly charitable contributions to organizations recommended by the donors.close
26. Amachi Pittsburgh
    —Following the lead of Leadership Foundation's national Board Chairman, Rev. Dr. Wilson Goode, PLF established Amachi Pittsburgh to provide specialized mentoring services to children in our region with incarcerated parents.
    www.amachipgh.org close
27. Pittsburgh Servant Leaders
    —PLF president Stahl-Wert gathered a group of local business leaders, including Bruce Bickel, Carter Birely, Donna Brighton, Craig Esterly, Dave Frengel, Darrin Grove, Dave Frengel, Dick Johnson and Rich Snebold, to establish a regular forum for leaders to talk about faith and the marketplace. PSL meets the 3rd Thursday of each month at PNC Park.
    http://tinyurl.com/pslpgh close
28. The Leaders Collaborative
    —Expanding from Pittsburgh Servant Leaders, PLF brought Lisa Slayton onto the staff to found The Leaders Collaborative. TLC equips and connects senior leaders in a cohort based comprehensive process to learn to follow the leadership principles demonstrated by Jesus.
    http://tinyurl.com/tlcpghclose
29. Storehouse for Teachers
    —Leveraging the success of the Pittsburgh Community Storehouse, PLF supported Storehouse executive director Justin Brown in redesigning the Storehouse as the Storehouse for Teachers. SFT serves kids and their teachers by providing a resource center where school and classroom supplies are distributed at no cost.
    www.storehouseforteachers.org close
30. Greater Pittsburgh Community Leaders Prayer Breakfast
    —The Greater Pittsburgh Community Leaders Prayer Breakfast was not created by PLF, nor for most of its life was it led by PLF. Sam Deep, Mike Doyle, Mark Elfstrand, Kerry Fraas, Bob Jamison, Dick Joseph and Jim O'Malley led the Prayer Breakfast in its first dozen years to gather Pittsburgh's business and elected leaders to pray together and to hear about the life-changing impact of Jesus. PLF's newest activity was to assume the servant role of organizer for this Leaders Prayer Breakfast; this is fitting, since our first activity 30 years ago was the creation of the Labor Management Prayer Breakfast.close

• Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation
• History
• National Affiliations
• Staff
• Board of Directors
• Careers
• Success Stories
• News

Success Story

Storehouse For Teachers

Read More »

• » Schedule a Consult
• » Call us: 1-877-438-2532