To guide community foundations interested in developing their community leadership skills, we use the Framework for Community Leadership by a Community Foundation. The Framework was developed by the National Task Force on Community Leadership, a group of 36 community foundation leaders assembled by CFLeads in 2008.

It was then updated in 2013 by the Cultivating Community Engagement Panel, made up of philanthropic leaders, researchers, government officials and people from neighborhood and community groups. This revision placed a greater emphasis on the importance of resident engagement and is the current and most widely used version of the Framework today.