TCFHR launches new programs to strengthen organizational leadership and capacity-building

New programming at the Community Foundation of Harrisonburg and Rockingham will strengthen local nonprofit leaders and their organizations through professional development, capacity-building, and collaboration.

The Rocco Fellowship, a coaching program for nonprofit leaders, launches its first cohort in September 2026. The fellows, selected through a competitive application process, will participate in nine monthly group sessions led by an executive coach.

Learn more about the Rocco Fellowship.

A new capacity-building grant will be offered in fall 2026. This funding is focused on increasing the knowledge, processes, and/or efficiency within a nonprofit organization through funding for organizational assessments, board development, strategic planning, explorations of mergers/collaborations, feasibility studies, or other processes. Investments of software or technological products will also be considered.

Learn more about the Rocco Capacity-Building grants.

A monthly networking and informational event, Coffee and Conversation, has been running since fall 2025, with an average of 15 nonprofit leaders, staff, and board attending each session.

These three initiatives were informed by a survey of nonprofit leadership in summer 2025 that identified the following learning formats as particularly desirable and beneficial — small group discussions with a facilitator, a cohort-based program to collaborate and learn from peers, and specific time and resources to solve problems and challenges.

“The Rocco Legacy Endowment provided the spark for this work, centered around elevating collective discourse, centering our nonprofit leaders in their challenging work, and nurturing our shared values of ethical stewardship, reflective practice, and growth through collaboration,” said Lauren Jefferson, director of programs and marketing. “We look forward to supporting, celebrating, and encouraging those who lead in our local philanthropic space.”

The endowment honors the legacy, values, and spirit of Rocco Enterprises, a locally owned, fully-integrated poultry company run by the Strickler family from 1939 to 2001. Philanthropy, service, stewardship, and investment in both employees and the community were foundational pillars of Rocco’s corporate culture. Among its business practices, Rocco prioritized recognition of inherent power of mutual interdependence, the promotion of creativity, and the innovative concept of intrapreneurship.

Programming carries on the objectives of the Rocco Forum on Philanthropy, a biannual speaker series offered from 2008 through 2024, and the Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership program, which started in 2017 and provided annual professional development workshops.