Nothing grows from the top down. It's true whether you're talking about a tree or a community.

That's the simple idea behind The Chandler Center for Community Leadership.

The Chandler Center, a non-profit organization, is dedicated to providing the training, resources and guidance to help communities identify and solve their own problems -- and develop a strong grassroots leadership structure to solve the problems of the future.

Our approach is results-oriented and pragmatic. We help communities set clearly defined goals and pull together resources from every sector -- government, business, education, non-profit agencies and philanthropic organizations -- to meet them.

Named after the late Robert W. Chandler, journalist and philanthropist, The Chandler Center is based at the OSU Cascades Campus in Bend, Oregon, and is a collaboration between Oregon State University-Cascades Campus, Central Oregon Community College, and private funders.