Fellows

Aaron founded Taproot to mobilize business professionals to contribute their expertise to their communities and integrate service into business careers.

Preparing a globally-minded generation of leaders by embedding the bridge year into the American higher education system, unlocking students’ potential as global citizens, while also addressing the rising cost and questioned relevance of the American higher education system.

Changing the way food is produced by creating a market for humanely-raised animal products.

Garnering respect, important rights and protections for the last excluded workforce in this country: domestic workers.

Aisha has designed and successfully implemented the longest-running guaranteed income initiative in the United States at a moment when demand for newer, better approaches to economic and racial inequities is peaking.

Albert Cahn is the Founder of Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or S.T.OP., a community-led response to the new wave of tech-enabled surveillance that is being deployed against marginalized communities in New York and beyond. S.T.O.P is building better oversight of rights-infringing technologies via litigation, legislation, and community education and mobilization.

Investing in teachers to ensure schools make the most of children’s innate desire to learn by valuing creativity as much as their academic achievement.

Improving college graduation rates for students from low-income communities by bridging the data gap between K-12 education and U.S. colleges and universities.

Developing local solutions to deep social challenges, such as trauma, poverty and other forms of exclusion, by revealing and supporting assets that enhance well- being

Alison is transforming small businesses into employee-owned companies that grow community wealth and address inequality. 

How can we improve outcomes for kids in foster care? By breaking the cycle of disruption and trauma

Pioneering the web-accessible marketplace for social action, making it possible for virtually anyone to act on their desire to change society for the better.

Through an approach called ‘natural capitalism,’ Amory is driving the efficient and restorative use of renewable resources into communities, the government, corporations, and beyond.

Amy created Boundless Playgrounds to start a movement toward building inclusive, developmentally advantageous playgrounds where children of all abilities can have the best opportunities for healthy development.

Amy Lemley is addressing the growing problem of homelessness among teenagers who are too old for foster care but have neither a place to live nor the means to support themselves. Her work is helping former foster youth secure affordable apartments by providing them with microloans for housing start-up costs to get their "first place."

Introducing ”Dream Directors” into the American education system , - tasked with helping students to name whatever it is that they are passionate about and to design “Future Projects” to bring those passions to life.

Unleashing the voice of today’s fan communities and using the power of popular culture to amplify the effectiveness of nonprofits and educators.

Retrofitting cities for sustainability by equipping citizens and governments with the tools to manage cities as one would a sustainable ecosystem.

Uplifting women and girls of African descent through a variety of innovative, culturally relevant and gender-specific approaches.

Angelou is cultivating a generation of youth of color to be stewards of our land and natural resources and ultimately shift the demographics of the environmental conservation movement.

Anne Basting is transforming the experience of aging and the stigma around dementia and memory loss by empowering older adults and their caregivers with new practices rooted in creative expression and community building.

Providing quality, private health insurance to low-income workers in emerging economies. The approach distributes cost and social responsibility among several stakeholders affiliated with the working poor.

Astra Taylor has championed a series of creative, systems-changing engagement opportunities for debtors nationwide to effectively push back against unfair debts, change policy, and build strong, local, and lasting solutions to the problem of economic inequality.

Recreating microfinance and money-transfer industries to better serve and integrate the world’s new globalized poor, regardless of where they are.

Unleashing elder power, building loving mutual-support communities, cultivating wisdom and promoting senior citizen activism that transforms nursing homes from institutions to person-centered communities.

Broadening healthcare delivery to reach low-income families by focusing on the social as well as biological roots of patients’ illness instead of just the symptoms.

Finding and investing in entrepreneurs whose businesses fuel change and spark economic growth in Central America, creating a culture of entrepreneurship devoted to local development.

Transforming the traditional model of engineering by revamping training methodology and integrating the field of engineering more closely with global issues such as poverty alleviation, hunger, and disease.

Betsy created the Youth Advocacy Center help foster youth acquire the self-advocacy skills and professional mentorships they need to reach their goals.

Bianca Tylek is exposing the invisible ecosystem of actors that financially benefit from incarceration.

Democratizing global policymaking by increasing the citizen sector’s role and uniting diverse global networks to address global challenges, particularly the effort to reduce the likelihood of war. Bill also convenes the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

Brandon is dramatically transforming the workforce development sector in Appalachia and beyond, with a model that creates new and viable economic markets, while simultaneously creating direct employment and personal development opportunities. 

Improving patients’ lives quickly and safely by targeting small research investments to repurpose existing FDA-approved pharmaceuticals, treatments, and medical devices.

Creating a high transparency, ethical bank for the social sector, that reconnects meaning and money by pegging interest rates and bank fees to customers’ environmental and social impacts.

Byron is championing a better, more sustainable method of solar energy deployment via a new field called “agrivoltaics” where solar panels are co-located on workable farmland in ways that address land scarcity, climate change, and farming viability simultaneously. 

Building the capacity of government to leverage family and community assets to reduce crime and increase community well-being.

Providing a safer middle- and high-school environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.

Providing a safer middle- and high-school environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.

Casey has created a worldwide travel community built on trust and appreciation of difference by orchestrating one-on-one interactions and homestays with strangers at mass scale.

Through Arms with Ethics, Casey Woods is leveraging law enforcement’s unique ability to speak to all sides on the gun issue by developing police-led proactive strategies that help build a national network of common-sense, consensus-building community safety partners that includes gun owners and gun sellers.

Pioneering a way for citizens to directly support educational projects in underresourced schools using an online marketplace where entrepreneurial teachers can post projects to be supported by private citizens.

Dr. Charles C. Daniels Jr. believes that one of the best ways to support children growing up in fatherless homes is to support their fathers.

Chloe McKenzie is combatting wealth inequality through a new paradigm for financial education and policy, one that is honest about the financial trauma Black girls and girls of color and their families face.

Reengaging middle school students in their studies through personalized apprenticeships in their dream jobs.

Reducing juvenile incarceration and recidivism rates and changing the culture of the juvenile justice system by getting the system to listen to young people and turning it into a place of transformation for troubled youth.

Freedom for Immigrants is the only detention visitation network in the country monitoring the human rights abuses faced by thousands of immigrants held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Freedom for Immigrants has created a community-based alternative to detention that welcomes immigrants into the social fabric of the United States, instead of incarcerating individuals in the nation’s prison system.

Radically improving the nutritional outcomes of children living without families by recognizing that trauma changes their nutritional needs and by focusing on both what they eat and how they are fed.

Creating a new norm and low-cost options for elderly people to stay in their homes and receive care there, rather than move to often overcrowded, under-performing nursing homes.

Identifying, helping, and bringing national recognition to the children and adolescents in the United States who have dual roles as students and caregivers for ill, frail or disabled family members.

Training women journalists

Showcasing and promoting citizen-inspired initiatives across the country, transforming public television into an interactive forum, which encourages discourse and social innovation

Helping non-custodial, incarcerated fathers reengage with their families and, upon release, reintegrate into their community as productive, contributing citizens by teaching job skills and providing fatherhood training.

Preparing students for citizenship and leadership in the 21st century by closing the global competency gap within K-12 education in the United States.

Facilitating the movement of technology to the citizen sector by creating an online community centered on the needs of the social sector.

Daniel Kish is transforming the blindness profession and the lives of people around the world through a model of perceptual navigation that is more respectful of blind dignity and purpose, easier to teach, learn, and use, and is more diversely applicable to all ages, cultures, backgrounds, and ability profiles.

Danielle has created the only prison diversion program in the country that provides alternatives to incarceration.  
 

Daquan has designed a culture of empowerment in schools by promoting entrepreneurial skills and spirit in classrooms across the nation.

Bringing together communities and corporate volunteers to build play spaces in low-income neighborhoods, establishing playgrounds and skateparks where they are most needed.

Darryl Holliday is building a new model for participatory journalism that convenes, trains and pays community members to become civic changemakers. 

Reducing child abuse and neglect by providing families in crisis with temporary alternatives to the child welfare system

Building the capacity of marginalized communities by identifying grassroots leaders and teaching them the life skills to become agents of change.

David created the See Forever school network to support inner city students with the educational, economical, and emotional support to break out of poverty and recidivism.

David created Samaritan Inns to provide homeless, addicted people with a longterm community-based recovery system.

Building a youth-powered movement designed to combat the prevailing stigmas attached to learning differences while also equipping students with the tools and sense of personal efficacy they need to self-advocate.

Enabling developing countries to produce, distribute, and service high-quality, affordable health care products.

Ensuring disadvantaged students’ academic success by securing contractual commitments by students, parents, and teachers, and by building a strong school culture of high expectations.

David and Welcoming America are helping communities fearful or skeptical of immigration to understand how and why the U.S. can find pride in upholding traditions of being welcoming, at community and individual levels

David is championing the concept of ‘open educational resources’ to reinvent how educational content is created, licensed, used, and improved—ultimately enabling college and university students to access to access radically improved class materials at dramatically reduced prices

Through an unconventional approach to music education, David is offering children and teachers heightened opportunities to engage with each other as fearless co-creators and active, inspired learning partners.

By shifting the focus from 'unhealthy people' to systemic challenges, Denisa is empowering Navajo communities to take control of food policy and lead a movement toward food sovereignty in Navajo Nation.

Derek created Polaris to put an end to human trafficking by engaging community members, law enforcement and policy-makers in a coordinated attack on the trafficker’s incentives - high profits and low risk of prosecution.

DeVone and Advance Peace are building a new system for community-led gun violence prevention. DeVone’s focus is on healing, nurturing, and building up the few young people responsible for the majority of gun violence so that they can become healthy and leave violence behind.

Diana is expanding the legal and cultural definition of “family” – and proving that a more inclusive approach can help everyone. The nuclear family model may no longer be the norm in the US (less than one-fifth of families fit the mold of two adults living with their minor children), but it's still the basis for social and economic benefits like health care, tax breaks and citizenship. Diana Adams believes that all families, regardless of biological relationship or legal marriage, are deserving of equal rights and recognition.

Helping torture survivors regain their sense of trust and community, and elevating their voices in the international campaign to end torture.

Making basic economic tools, like insurance, utilities, and credit, available and affordable by advocating on their behalf against the administrative agencies that oppress them.

Dan created Aspire to build clusters of high-performing charter schools in targeted underperforming neighborhoods.

Helping low-income youth transform their lives through service and leadership in their communities as they build affordable housing.

Promoting sustainable economic models that protect our natural resources, Alaska’s Indigenous culture, commercial fishing and unique subsistence way of life.

Through BELL, Earl transformed out-of-school-time into an opportunity for rigorous educational instruction to help close the achievement gap. Earl moved on to found and CEO Summer Advantage and Phalen Leadership Academies. He is now the Social Entrepreneur in Residence at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Instilling religious understanding and cooperation by building an interfaith movement of youth focused on common service to others.

Offering a way for people to care for one another through traditional volunteer means by ‘banking’ their volunteer time for their own current and future needs.

Unleashing the enormous potential of the home learning environment to improve the academic and life-long success of low-income children and their families.

Against the backdrop of a growing youth mental wellbeing crisis, Elise is reinventing the support service ecosystem to expand and improve public health access for young people so they can live without shame or fear. 

Helping local government and international organizations engage and harness local talent and technologies to build homes that are earthquake resistant.

Establishing a new cultural norm in which individuals and families talk openly about their values and wishes for end-of-life care—particularly with those who will make decisions for them if they can’t make them for themselves.

Improving learning for students—and especially underserved students—in America by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers through the world’s first corps of professional education mentors composed of expert teachers.

Elliot created Springboard to helping low-wage workers develop the capacity to advance, while simultaneously showing employers the benefits of investing in their entry-level workforce.

Improving learning for students—and especially underserved students—in America by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers through the world’s first corps of professional education mentors composed of expert teachers.

Building the next generation of peacemakers by teaching young people peacemaking skills, empowering educators and parents to model these skills, and creating social messages that raise expectations for young people to demonstrate empathy.

Eric is leading a national civic revival at a moment when faith in American democracy and its institutions are at an all-time low. 

Transforming the way countries and governments treat those with mental disabilities by demanding international recognition and enforcement of their basic human rights.

Erica is bringing high-quality birth care and health education to women in prisons, and transforming our criminal justice system in the process.

Expanding and deepening the civic engagement of law firms and corporate legal departments

Providing reader-reviewed news on which citizens can rely by aggregating news stories that are rated for journalistic quality by news consumers themselves.

Through a new citywide model for developing and retaining talent, Fagan Harris is activating networks to position talent as a city’s main “architecture” in which to invest, and in so doing upgrading the social impact sector’s capabilities, consciousness and collaborative capacity, thus empowering cities to solve their most pressing challenges.

Farhana created CEO Women to propel immigrant women into leading roles in business and life through innovative entrepreneurship education.

Activating the values base of the religious sector to curb wasteful consumerism and set faith-based communities on a track to environmental stewardship.

Frank has been transforming community development finance in the U.S. by incentivizing mainstream financial institutions to funnel capital into-low-income communities across the country.

Assembling an international coalition to transform the global health sector by reducing health industry practices that harm the environment and contribute to disease.

Treating violence as an infectious disease and eradicating the norm of violence in the most dangerous of urban areas around the world.

George organized doctors to give expert, non-partisan, scientific consultation to policy-makers on the medical ramifications of social policies.

George works to ensure that every American has access to clean, running water forever through participatory engagement. 

Empowering urban talent to reach their potential by connecting urban youth with corporations in need of skilled entry-level talent.

Gerald founded the Institute for Redress and Recovery with the goal of bringing torturers to justice in domestic and international courts, and providing clinical support to victims.

Gina Clayton is building a loving and powerful community for the millions of women who have loved ones behind bars to end the harm of the American criminal justice system to women and families.

Adventure Scientists is harnessing the skill, motivation, and geographic reach of people who recreate in the outdoors – hikers, surfers, kayakers, mountain bikers and more – and applying it to rigorous data collection for the purpose of environmental stewardship and conservation.

Through BanQu, a disruptive innovation in the digital identity and financial inclusion spaces, Hamse and his co-founders Ashish Gadnis and Jeff Keiser are creating a paradigm shift in the way individuals and organizations (large and small) engage with refugees.

Redefining the way after-school care is delivered, funded, and institutionalized as an essential service for children.

Hillary Blout is fighting to break cycles of incarceration, poverty, and trauma in order to reunite families and repair communities for generations to come. 

Understanding that laws, policies and infrastructure have historically been designed to keep the low-income community from attaining a better quality of life, Imran Khan has identified how to increase the intrinsic motivation and skills of inner-city youth to counter these structures. By facilitating sustained interaction between the youth, the city and its citizens, Imran proves that experiential development has as crucial a role to play as cognitive development in the educational setting.

Democratizing public media by creating an open architecture and marketplace that allows new producer entrants, delivers greater choice in programming, and guides the field from traditional broadcasting to a flexible and interactive multimedia approach.

Jane created Upwardly Global to engage employers in relationships that shift awareness, hiring practices, and company culture around immigrant inclusion.

Developing the legal infrastructure necessary for a new, resilient, sharing economy to thrive in the United States.

Creating incentives and new practices so that the built environment improves health and well-being while increasing our access to a diverse and productive natural world

Creating incentives and new practices so that the built environment improves health and well-being while increasing our access to a diverse and productive natural world
Through Partners in Food Solutions, Jeff Dykstra is forging unlikely alliances between the world’s largest and smallest food companies, freeing up latent human potential to build a more robust, secure global food system.

Uniting local leaders within education, government, and the philanthropic community behind a common vision and measurable set of goals to improve educational outcomes from cradle to career.

Creating a way to finance and deliver pharmaceuticals and healthcare for poor, uninsured, and semi-insured populations in the United States.

Developing the first viable non-profit model of dentistry that adheres to high standards of care in order to treat the millions of youth across the United States who currently do not receive oral health care.

Jelani Anglin is ensuring access to legal counsel at time of arrest for all Americans, including the most marginalized, creating a legal system where the right to an attorney exists in practice rather than in theory and, through equitable rights enforcement, combatting mass incarceration.

Jennifer Bailey is building more united, morally-rooted social movement infrastructure in the American South, and clear pathways for leadership and self-care for its most marginalized leaders. By combining the existing moral authority of religious institutions with a new wave of “moral imagination” from young, marginalized, faith-rooted leaders, Jennifer is re-building the bridge between social justice movements and the religious institutions that have historically fueled them.

Bringing the resources – talent, ideas, tools, energy – and operating principles of the tech world to make government work for the people, by the people, in the 21st century.

Through a global peer support network and macro policymaking, Survivor Corps transforms victims of conflict into active survivors and leaders.

Jess has designed a new victim-centered way to report sexual assault, identify repeat offenders, and provide institutions – beginning with universities – with relevant data to guard against and respond to the problem.

Jessica Sager is transforming and professionalizing the field of family childcare by supporting the providers in radically reimagining how they see themselves.

Jess has created a new model for managing textile waste at scale that encourages designers to weave the ethos of sustainability throughout their design cycles. 

Jill Habig is bringing justice to the law by closing the gap between the values expressed in our laws and the lived reality of our most underserved communities.

Using the power of play to bring out the best in every kid, while creating safe, inclusive school environments that allow kids to thrive and discover their own superpowers, both in and out of the classroom.

Putting an end to multi-generational poverty by recruiting recent college graduates as AmeriCorps coaches to support low-income students and make college success possible for them.

Working against the dominant conception of sports as a sphere for flamboyant and ruthless competition, Jim Thompson reestablishes competitive athletics as a space in which all youth can acquire the skills and values they need for lasting success.

Jimmy has revolutionized the field of information sharing and collecting through Wikipedia - a free, open source, multilingual online encyclopedia that is publically created and edited.

John created Rocketship Education to deliver quality education to low-income students by increasing the independence and efficacy of elementary-level charter schools.

Creating a full toolbox of methodologies for conflict prevention, including harnessing the power of the media and popular culture.

John started Pura Vida to create new approaches to capital formation and social enterprise, redefining the boundaries between for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Building a coalition of parents and other concerned citizens to make democracy work for children.

Ensuring that every person has access to eye care by addressing the market failure for affordable eyecare in the developing world.

Helping financially excluded communities – particularly low-income and immigrant families – become visible, active, and successful participants in the U.S. financial mainstream.

Providing Hispanic parents with educational opportunities that will enable them to become active agents of change to reduce dropout rates, transform communities, and ensure a better future for their families.

Ending violence throughout the United States by treating violence as a communicable disease.

Joseph created New Creations to keep ex-prisoners out of jail through a cellular social structure, allowing ex-prisoners to find the support network, sense of solidarity and individual responsibility needed for success.

Creating connected and coordinated rural health care systems by using mobile-phone based technologies to reinvent the role of the local community health worker.

Kara is reimagining an education system based on Indigenous traditions and prepares young people to shape their future.

Creating an alternative solution to traditional public transit that allows older Americans to transition from driving to being driven through a whole-community solution to keeps aging populations mobile and active.

Re-creating pregnancy to improve birth outcomes for women of color in America by giving them the extended family and community support that only a “sisterfriend” can provide.

Katie is changing the demographics of voice in America by increasing the number and diversity of ideas in our public discourse.

Katie is bringing fresh food to communities that lack them, catalyzing community engagement and local entrepreneurship along the way.

Pioneering a body of legal mechanisms to hold corporations accountable for their complicity in human rights and environmental abuses perpetrated around the world, and increasing access to justice for victims of such abuses.

Katrina is transforming our broken funeral industry with a new approach that reconnects death to natural cycles of life.

Keith Wattley is reforming the discretionary parole system which, despite its mandate, overwhelmingly fails to create pathways home for people serving long (and life) sentences who no longer pose a danger to society.

Building an anti-human trafficking movement model beginning with the trucking industry that could be applied across every mode of transportation.

Building the infrastructure for a chronic care model of addiction recovery that engages communities and employers alike, breaks down silos between the two, and de-stigmatizes this age-old disease.

Starting with the education system, Kevin Long is utilizing resources from developed nations to support, mentor, and train teachers in developing countries with teaching methodologies targeted specifically at deaf students. Through the work of his organization, Global Deaf Connection (GDC), these students are encouraged to gain higher education and become trained professionals.

Labor Voices is facilitating more transparency in international labor markets by crowdsourcing intelligence from directly from laborers via mobile phone surveys and using it to push for changes within supply chains.

Transforming nutrition standards in low-income communities by providing healthy, fresh school lunches, and changing attitudes of principals, teachers, and parents about what’s expected and possible for school food standards.

Empowering disadvantaged, minority American youth to become stronger leaders through language study in Arabic or Chinese, international learning experiences, leadership training and college preparatory assistance.

Transforming nutrition standards in low-income communities by providing healthy, fresh school lunches, and changing attitudes of principals, teachers, and parents about what’s expected and possible for school food standards.

Kristina is building a model for community-based peer support and care for people with eating disorders. 

Lam Ho is changing the field of legal aid to make it more accessible and responsive to underserved communities and to strengthen its role as a vehicle for social justice.

Creating diverse, project-based, urban public charter schools, and preparing teachers to eliminate traditional, segregating boundaries between technical, vocational education and liberal arts-style, college preparatory education.

Dr. Laura Emiko Soltis leads a modern-day freedom school for undocumented youth where students receive free college-level classes, college application assistance, and the social movement leadership training they need to determine the course of their own freedom struggle. Against a backdrop of Southern states that deny undocumented students equal access to public higher education, Freedom U is creating liberatory spaces for learning and advancing undocumented students’ human right to education.

Laura is helping parents and school communities embrace the goal of “collective well-being”, which champions equity and aims to changes the lives of U.S. students.

Lennon Flowers is upsetting the current clinical approach that pathologizes grief with a universal, humanizing model that empowers deeper community and personal growth. Through The Dinner Party, people who’ve lost a loved one are transforming life after loss from a deeply isolating experience and culturally taboo topic to an extraordinary tool for connection and community-building.

Lenore is driving a huge parental cultural shift in the US, away from fear and over-protection and towards trust and reasonable independence for children.

Providing comprehensive health education to teens across the country through a network of volunteer peer educators.

Lynn created Camp to Belong to reunite brothers and sisters placed in separate foster homes and preserve their sibling bond, and advocate on their behalf in public institutions and policies.

Leading the call to engage millions of baby boomers in “encore careers” by combining personal meaning, continued income, and social impact to produce a windfall of human talent to solve society’s greatest problems.

The high rate of unplanned pregnancy presents enormous challenges for women, families and society. Through Upstream USA, Mark and his colleagues are changing the culture of reproductive healthcare in the U.S. and pioneering a new model for ensuring all women receive same-day access to the full range of modern contraceptive methods.

Mark created the Genocide Intervention Network to provide a permanent anti-genocide constituency in the United States, and to empower activists to advocate for human rights through the use of technology.

Building a citizen-based movement of microlenders through an online lending platform, providing lenders of average means the ability to loan small amounts to small-scale entrepreneurs living in emerging markets.

Matthew created Strive Media to build an inclusive and collaborative network of ethnic media outlets, bringing greater diversity to mainstream media.

Matthew Lee is linking the monitoring and advocacy work of international human rights and environment organizations to an American movement that seeks to promote ethical business practices in international banking.

Matthew Rantanen is partnering with Tribes to solve the problem of broadband access and affordability in Indian country, which is one of the barriers that has kept tribes from fully participating in the 21st century economy. This requires the hard-earned trust of Tribes as well as policymakers, and a new vision for the architecture of the internet overall.

Enabling low-income, working families to self-organize and support each other as they gain fiscal independence and confidence, moving them into roles as active consumers of social services who deliver feedback.

Megan Marcus believes that any educator in the U.S. can and must become a consistent, caring and responsive “secure attachment figure.” Through FuelEd, Megan is showing how educators, school leaders, teacher training colleges, and counselors can transform educator preparation, performance and retention as well as student achievement and development both cost-effectively and at scale through the power of relationships.

Melissa Malzkuhn is the Founder of Motion Light Lab, which uses technology and storytelling tools to create sign language learning and literacy materials for Deaf children. Melissa’s work is also creating a space for Deaf culture to be sustained, supported, and empowered.

Micaela Connery is advancing disability-forward housing solutions that open doors to more affordable homes and opportunities for everyone.

Developing and marketing a national database that serves as an online clearinghouse for colleges, graduate schools, scholarships and internships for low-income students.

Creating access to credit for traditionally excluded and unbanked groups through the use of alternative data, such as reliably-paid rent and utility payments.

Catalyzing demand among low-income urban consumers for locally grown, healthy foods through a financing approach that fuels the growth and viability of small and mid-sized farms.

Aligning citizens and businesses around common environmental and economic interests by making recycling more comprehensive and removing the confusion around “green.

Michelle is helping build a vibrant and proactive movement for ecological justice in the United States by equipping frontline communities with a unifying framework and a national network of support.

Michelle is building a 21st Century labor movement that uses digital organizing methods to give voice and shift power to workers.  

Helping students to “define their own roads in life,” by exposing them to an unlimited number of careers and pathways,and equipping them with the tools and skills they need to make those pathways a reality.

Providing an innovative human capital solution for public schools by enlisting the vast array of adults within a community to serve as mentors to help students develop critical skills linked to college success.

Leveraging the power of emotional and physical training, Molly founded Girls on the Run to help girls and young women break the cultural stereotypes preventing them from living healthy, authentic lives.

Molly is transforming the way the Catholic Church and other holders of large, non-contiguous lands are able to respond to climate change and its attendant crises, using new technology tools for informed environmental planning beyond the border of the nation-state.

Molly Hemstreet is demonstrating and spreading a new economic development model for rural America, rooted in worker-owned manufacturing, heritage industries, and a stable middle-class labor market. Molly has developed a new playbook for economic revival in post-industrial America where success is measured not by big box stores and quick returns for outside investors but by good-paying, sophisticated manufacturing jobs woven together in a network of mutually reinforcing worker-owned cooperatives.

Combatting obesity in Black women by contextualizing health as a broader civil rights issue, meeting women at their point of need with a feasible first step, and turning healthy living into a service opportunity that trains community health leaders.

Helping communities bring generations together to identify issues of common concern and develop strategies that will promote interdependence and enrich the lives of all.

Building open-source, decentralizing tools for online media, putting people back at the center of culture, not corporations.

Reconnecting younger generations of Lakota with their cultural and spiritual identities, leading them to become the energy behind a new era of community-led development.

Nina is helping public institutions of all kinds become of, by, and for their own communities. 

Noran believes that the major failing of our juvenile justice system is its inability to provide young people real opportunities to practice being different in their communities. Through GrowingChange and its “Flip the Prison” initiative, he is setting the standards for re-using shuttered state-owned prisons and giving local leaders, educators, legislators, law enforcement agencies, and young people themselves the opportunity and the tools to change their communities’ power structures and their lives.

Reinventing teacher education through a “nurse practitioner” model of teacher training that focuses on practice over theory, and that links teacher certification to demonstrated results in the classroom.

Oona created Make the Road to empower residents to advocate for their rights and improve conditions in their neighborhoods.

Reengineering high-poverty schools to respond to the traumatic impact of poverty on students through student support systems, teacher training, and the promotion of high-performing school cultures.

Building a framework that enables and encourages homeowners to cooperatively buy, own, and manage the land on which their homes sit, transforming manufactured houses into appreciable assets.

Fighting poverty, promoting conscious consumerism, and creating sustainable development opportunities for farming communities around the world by certifying Fair Trade food products.

Building a new type of veterans’ organization to meet the needs of a new generation of veterans, nurture the leadership potential of these veterans, and transform the national conversation around veteran issues.

Paula is transforming our food system by helping large institutions approach food purchasing in ways that better reflect societal values of economic equity, environmental sustainability, and public health.

Paula Segal is reframing abandoned, neglected and un-programmed public land in cities as opportunity for multi-stakeholder community organizing. Her approach challenges residents to not accept ugly holes in their neighborhoods and empowers community groups with the tools, tactics, and experience to shape their cities. As her work spreads around the U.S. and the world, she is recognized as the pioneering advocate of the field of “community land access.”

Philipp created Peer 2 Peer University as a revolutionary model for online learning by combining the best in open education with leading technologies for social networking and collaboration.

Priti is democratizing the patent granting and oversight process in order to make life-saving medicines more affordable around the world. 

Purvi is building the field of Movement Lawyering so legal advocates can dramatically improve the lives of those who are most disadvantaged and support leading social justice movements in the US and around the world. 

Rachel is reforming legal services in a way that respects the client as a primary source of knowledge, inspiration, and solutions and helps changemakers thrive.

Creating a national reform movement and survivor-led model to change policy and public attitudes about the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Changing the trajectory of life for inner-city youth by training and employing them to provide technical services to major corporations during their senior year in high school.

Growing a national movement to advance “participatory defense” whereby families and communities can effectively participate in the criminal defense process and transform the landscape of power in the court system.

Challenging traditional methods of public education by establishing boarding schools, funded by public-private partnerships, in low-income urban communities.

Expanding doctors’ “prescriptions” to include housing, food, child care, and other basic resources necessary for low-income families to be healthy.

Rebecca van Bergen is transforming the lives of millions of home-based workers in the apparel and home design industries by bringing their profession into the formal economy.

Regi engages immigrant, young, small, new and established agricultural entrepreneurs in the US in refining and championing a global model for small-scale, poultry-powered (and planet cooling), scalable regenerative agriculture system.

Renae created NPFVPP to establish a new mindset and motivation among the nation’s 800,000 police officers and give their own mental health sufficient priority, while they dedicate themselves to serving and protecting the public.

Reyna is unlocking the changemaking potential of the fastest growing demographic in the United States – Latine youth – via a new model that cultivates community resilience and skilled leadership for undocumented and mixed-immigration status young people.

Changing the field of social enterprise by demonstrating the enormous potential of holistic models and social business ventures as a tool for poverty alleviation.

Ritu created TREE to bridge the gap between environmental practices and cultural/language barriers to ensure that 60 environmental measures in restaurants are implemented to achieve a quantifiable impact.

Providing individualized and coordinated primary care for patients with complex health needs in a way that reduces hospitalizations and nursing home placements, saving costs to patients and their families.

Promoting equal education by spreading math literacy, a gateway skill that gives minority students the opportunity to succeed in the new tech-based economy.

Recognizing and undoing individual and institutional racism through grassroots and institutional trainings, which has built a national network of anti-racist leaders.

Engaging intellectual property techniques used by business to increase poverty-alleviating trade by assisting producers, exporters, and governments in developing countries to increase export income.

Ronnie has designed an employer-sponsored savings program that is changing the outlook of the American working class.  

Developing innovative strategies to end homelessness and strengthen communities by leading large scale change initiatives, pioneering supportive housing, and executing research-based practices that end chronic homelessness.

Deploying a new patient-centered model of primary care centered around empathy and human relationships, and guided by smart preventive care so that costs are reduced while care and patient experience are improved.

Bringing greater diversity to mainstream media by building an inclusive and collaborative network of ethnic media outlets.

Spreading a new model to treat complex chronic diseases in rural and underserved areas by connecting urban healthcare specialists with rural providers through communication technology.

Building non-traditional families in order to radically reconfigure the level of support disenfranchised students have available to them.

Leading a nation-wide effort to transform the restaurant industry’s subpar employment practices by aligning worker, employer and consumer interests.

Designing and deploying disruptive communications technologies that ensure free and open communication as a fundamental human right.

Improving refugee resettlement by creating the infrastructure and know-how for an appropriately trained and professionalized citizen sector to work with the UN and governments.

Changing both what teachers teach and how they teach it through the creation of free and open resources, curricula, lesson plans, and video documentation drawn straight from the classroom.

Scott has designed a national, sober active community that celebrates the triumphs of people in recovery while challenging the stigma of addiction.

Sean Sherman helps Indigenous chefs, farmers, and environmentalists revive and popularize “pre-contact” cuisine as a way to tell a different, more accurate story about the Indigenous people of North America. He then harnesses all the interest and opportunities created to systematically improve food systems in tribal communities and beyond.

Transforming American democracy by increasing electoral and citizen participation on all fronts.

Bringing an ethos of hands-on, do-it-yourself, grassroots organizing to the environmental justice movement by providing affordable, accessible strategies for communities to define and address local environmental concerns.

Sharon Danks inspires and enables communities to enrich their school grounds and use them to improve children’s well-being, learning and play while contributing to the ecological health and resilience of their cities.

Improving health outcomes for patients who have genetic diseases by aligning incentives and structures so that they facilitate, rather than obstruct, the continuum of research, drug development, treatment, advocacy, and support.

Sixto is empowering young adults who “age out” of the foster care system to lead its transformation via peer support and technology solutions.

Sonya is transforming the domestic violence movement by championing financial stability through financial security and asset building. 

Increasing access to affordable housing by creating a value chain that connects manufactured housing companies to non-profit providers of low-income housing.

Transforming the traditional reward structures of biomedical research to encourage data sharing rather than data hoarding, leading to cross-industry collaboration in support of better health for all.

Stephen is building legal communities of practice that protect immigrants from the imbalance of power and otherization that cause abuse in the current system. 

Steve created America’s Family to combine compassion and business savvy in an innovative, employer-led model to help underemployed individuals and low-income families transform both the quality and direction of their lives.

Converting the court from adversary to advocate for people experiencing homelessness through a new court system tailored to their special needs.

Steve is working with churches and universities to begin healing racial trauma through story-sharing alliances.

Steve created Twin Cities Rise! to train impoverished people, particularly men of color, for living-wage jobs, fostering a mutually beneficial, incentivized economic exchange among citizens, government, and business.

Reviving local democracy and citizen participation by making local online engagement powerful, meaningful, and convenient for all.

Adjusting incentives so that cities can actualize dense infill development and stave off sprawl – a reversal that leads to dramatically improved environmental and social outcomes as cities swell in population.

Susan Silverman is creating a new model to support foster kids and families by tapping into the existing social capital of faith-based communities and creating new roles for everyone to play in support of young people.

Reimagining the meaning of full citizenship for people with disabilities in the context of international development.

Transforming the lives of under-resourced high school youth and reducing drop-out rates by using entrepreneurial experience as a vehicle to teach academic, business, and life skills.

Swapna is using technology to permanently reform the asylum-seeking process in the United States.  

Tammy created Just Bridges to change the justice system’s view of crime victims by demonstrating how their needs can be effectively addressed without compromising the integrity of the judicial process.

Tanya created Beyond Shelter to make permanent and affordable housing a fundamental human right for homeless families across America through a “housing first” approach.

Temp created RISE to change the way the nation recognizes, rewards, and retains public school teachers who effectively educate low-income students.

Living with autism, Temple has revolutionized livestock handling by using her ability to see the world in a different way to develop a deeper understanding of animal behavior.

Terrie created Baby’s Space to enable communities in low-income neighborhoods to create and sustain baby-centered childcare and education centers that promote the healthy development of our most vulnerable children.

Tiffiniy Cheng is expanding the internet's transformative potential for good by keeping this vital technology open and accessible. By activating millions of people across the globe and creating a cadre of internet defenders, she is ensuring that bottom-up civic engagement remains relevant in an increasingly online world.

Tim unlocks opportunities for wealth creation for Black, rural entrepreneurs by shifting our current economic development approach away from an overemphasis on collateral and prior wealth, and towards an appreciation of peer support and community prosperity.

Transforming aging and the way people think about aging by turning affordable senior apartment communities into vibrant centers of learning, wellness and creativity.

Making mental health and wellness services more accessible, useful, and meaningful for youth of color by integrating pop culture and community-defined strategies with proven therapy models.

Trabian founded BMe to update the narrative about black men in the United States, and to reveal them as catalysts for community building and national social change. BMe connects authentic black male leaders with key influencers across industries and sectors who share their belief in valuing all members of the human family.

Creating a nationwide brotherhood of African American students committed to lifelong leadership and service through principled, reciprocal and service-oriented communities of peers.

Van created the Ella Baker Center to bring a higher standard of accountability to the criminal justice and police enforcement systems.

Victoria created One World Health to develop safe, effective and affordable drugs to treat neglected diseases that afflict largely rural and poor populations in the developing world.

Building the field of global legal empowerment by taking localized justice efforts, rigorously documenting their impact, weaving them into a cohesive network.

Wendy created TFA to create lifelong opportunities for children who attend the poorest schools in America by recruiting a new generation of leaders to teach.

Developing a model called civic consumption that allows individuals and institutions to leverage their collective purchasing power to generate social and environmental benefits in their own communities.

Pioneering finance for grassroots businesses in rural Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa by providing capital, financial training, and market connections that build sustainable livelihoods and transform rural communities.

William is creating racially affirming learning environments that Black students need to thrive and succeed.

Billy founded the Energy Action Coalition to unite disparate student groups on campuses across the U.S. and Canada into a single, coordinated, and youth-led movement to build the green economy and solve the climate crisis.

Breaking the cycle of domestic abuse in rural communities by bringing legal and social services to women and children battling domestic violence in isolated, secluded areas where few services exist.

Yeshi is leading a movement of data scientists and changemakers to transform data into a force for social change. 

Yordanos Eyoel is building a transnational ecosystem for learning, collaboration, and innovation to counter authoritarianism and advance inclusive and resilient democracies.

Seizing America’s health care crisis as an opportunity to realign major forces in the health care and food industries so that they promote individual and collective health beginning with food quality.