FOLLOW THE LEADER

Program that returns addicts to work could show nonprofits keys to success

DURHAM--Nine years ago, Kevin McDonald had three assets: a run-down school
building, $18,000 and the help of a few recovering drug addicts. Today, he
is the head of a $6 million nonprofit enterprise that enrolls about 300
recovering addicts at any given time, making it the largest residential
drug treatment program in the state, McDonald says.

TROSA, or Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers, has helped
hundreds of people stay sober and become productive, employed citizens. It
is still run mostly by former drug abusers, including McDonald.

For six months, a Duke University researcher put TROSA under a microscope,
studying leadership there.

Now, her ethnography could influence nonprofit groups nationwide as part of
a project sponsored by the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public
Policy at New York University and the Ford Foundation.

Ellen Schall, dean of the Wagner School, said she hopes the study and
others change the way the nation thinks about leadership. When asked to
name a leader, she said, too many people today think only of icons such as
Martin Luther King Jr.

"They can't name the 2003 equivalent of that, so they think there's no
leadership," Schall said.

"We think that if more people could see that leadership does exist and can
make a difference, it would invite others to step up and take leadership
roles in their own communities."

In 2001, McDonald was selected by the Ford Foundation, the Wagner School
and the Advocacy Institute in Washington as one of 19 winners of a $130,000
Leadership for a Changing World Award.

Last year, TROSA was one of four winners selected for the in-depth
ethnographies, said Sonia Ospina, professor of public management and policy
at the Wagner School.

What makes leadership at TROSA fascinating, she said, is that it happens on
many levels, not just at the top.

Schall said, "They really have figured out a way to bring the leadership
out in a lot of people that other people have written off."

Triangle residents also can learn lessons from TROSA. An exhibit featuring
photos from the study opened April 10 at Duke's Center for Documentary
Studies. It is to be the focal point of a workshop for local nonprofit
board members on May 30.

Each One Teach One

Drugs have landed McDonald in prison and near death. He overdosed nearly 25
times before enrolling in San Francisco's Delancey Street program, where he
quit drugs for good in 1979. But confronting who he was -- and changing --
was hard.

The real leaders of the world "go to work every day and take care of their
families and struggle and survive but don't ever quit. That's the
leadership that nobody ever ... sees," McDonald says in the 51-page
ethnography by Barbara Lau, community programs director for Duke's Center
for Documentary Studies. "You can be a leader of one, and just by doing the
right thing, you can affect so many."

McDonald helped establish a Delancey Street program in Greensboro before a
group persuaded him to start TROSA in Durham. He borrowed the basic
concepts, creating a two-year residential program where addicts work in
businesses run by the center while they sober up. But he added
improvements, such as offering each resident an inexpensive car after
graduation and starting an aftercare program to keep alumni sober.

Now McDonald is at the top of a structured hierarchy at TROSA, consisting
of department heads, team leaders, intern leaders and others. "TROSA is not
a democracy," Lau's ethnography says. "[McDonald] is in charge."

Being a "leader of one" is still at the heart of its philosophy, Lau said.
"You internalize a set of values and a morality that can help you make the
right decisions about your life," she said. "It's honesty when no one else
is watching."

Setting a good example for someone else helps the whole group. "Each one
teach one" is TROSA's motto.

At first, addicts at TROSA work from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. each day for at
least 30 days. Those who stick with the program slowly regain privileges,
such as getting phone calls or wearing a watch. After 14 months, they may
go home, with an escort, for the first time. And at 21 months, they get a
job. The money they earn serves as their nest egg after they leave the program.

While they are at TROSA, they learn a trade, such as catering or
construction, through the organization's businesses. They volunteer. They
participate in group therapy "games" in which they criticize each other and
vent emotions. Slowly, they take on greater leadership roles -- overseeing
an intern, a work crew, a team.

Many TROSA graduates have gone on to become paid staff members.

"The staff, many who have less than five years of sobriety, are trying to
run a $6 million business," Lau said. "People feel overwhelmed a lot. ..
[McDonald] knows he's asking a lot."

There are times when they fall short, too. TROSA's survival is always on a
razor's edge, because the organization continues to expand, McDonald said.
Its newest project is to build a major expansion to its campus.

"What we're doing now, they call it fund raising," McDonald said. "What
I've learned is, everyone else starts in the beginning to do it. I didn't
know about that."

TROSA also decided against opening a branch in Baltimore, in part because
McDonald would have been stretched too thin. Now, he imagines designing a
60- to 80-bed "modular" facility that could be replicated in other communities.

McDonald said the ethnography has helped him step back from the swirl of
day-to-day operations and reflect on TROSA's evolution. He realizes that
for TROSA to expand elsewhere, he needs to delegate more responsibility.

"It's something we have to do for the future," he said. "There's a lot of
people out there that need some help."