We are thrilled to welcome Kevin Kirby, co-founder of Face It TOGETHER as an Ashoka Fellow. He is 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.
In a one-on-one interview with Ashoka published on Forbes.com, Kevin shares how he came to realize he is no different from anyone else, where his sense of purpose comes from and how the idea for Face It TOGETHER came about.
It would have taken us a few more years to find out about Kevin’s work in Sioux Falls, SD had it not been for a serendipitous phone call from Trend Spotter Jim Sturdevant. People often ask us if they can nominate their founders or nominate themselves. Here is proof that you absolutely can!
Let us know if you have a social entrepreneur or a trend you’d like to bring to our attention. We’re always eager to learn!
Q & A WITH TREND SPOTTER JIM STURDEVANT
Jim is Director of Strategy at Face It TOGETHER and serves as a Board Member of Face It TOGETHER Sioux Falls. He shares his leadership passions as an adjunct professor at the University of Sioux Falls Vuchurevich School of Business.
What social issue most motivates you and how do you make change in your community?
I have always been motivated to help remove barriers that keep people from fully using their gifts. As a manager in the federal and private sectors for 34 years, I focused my passion on improving work environments for employees. I worked to create and nurture employment practices that helped people to grow and thrive. Also, I enabled other managers through leadership workshops, mentoring, and coaching. Last year, I earned a Doctorate in Leadership, with an emphasis on transformational leadership. I am now a leadership consultant, and I teach leadership and organizational development at a university.
How/when did you start engaging with Ashoka?
I started engaging with Ashoka just a few months after I began working with Face It TOGETHER. At that time, the Face It TOGETHER team was coming to understand that their vision and mission were primarily about broad social change, and not only about change in the addiction treatment and recovery fields. We began to study the field of social entrepreneurship. We began reaching out to social entrepreneurship organizations. Ashoka rose to the top of our list.
Where did you meet the Fellow you nominated?
Kevin Kirby and I have lived in the same community our entire lives. While I knew of Kevin for decades, I finally met him in May 2012. That meeting coincidentally occurred when I began consulting and teaching. I was introduced to Kevin as a potential client, and I immediately became a passionate supporter of Kevin and his organization, Face It TOGETHER.
What struck you most about his work?
Courage. Courage to tackle what I believe is our nation’s largest and most complex social problem. Courage to tackle it in the face of massive, deep-rooted institutional and societal barriers. Addiction to alcohol and other drugs is a chronic disease that can be difficult to identify—-even difficult to define. It is shrouded in stigma. People with the disease often experience fear and shame, and many avoid seeking help. Those who seek help from health providers most often receive acute care rather than chronic care. Face It TOGETHER is working to change hearts, minds, and systems across all community sectors. The Face It TOGETHER model brings value to employers, health providers, and whole communities. Braced with enormous courage, Kevin is leading a social movement—not unlike the civil rights movement. It’s about transformational leadership.
Join us in welcoming Pam Cantor, founder of Turnaround for Children, to Ashoka’s network!
Pam is reengineering public schools to respond to the recurring challenges to teaching and learning that stem from the traumatic impact of poverty.
In her one on one interview with us, Pam shares how the idea for Turnaround for Children came up and how her background as a psychiatrist shaped her path.
Read her interview with Ashoka on Forbes.com.
It is thanks to Susan Stevenson that we initially learned about Pam & Turnaround for Children. We’re so grateful for the tip!
Q & A WITH TREND SPOTTER SUSAN STEVENSON
Susan Stevenson is Executive Director of Flamboyan Foundation’s Washington, D.C. office. She shapes, implements, and oversees all aspects of Flamboyan Foundation’s strategy and manages the team in Washington, D.C.
What social issue most motivates you and how do you make change in your community ?
I work on improving education for all children, focused in Washington D.C. When we started Flamboyan Foundation we knew that we wanted to improve education in Washington DC and talked to a lot of people about levers of student achievement that weren’t adequately pulled. Many people talked about family engagement. We did a lot of research to find out first if it’s true that family engagement makes a difference for children, and secondly what is being done about family engagement in the country. What we found is that most engagements are focused on fixing parents so that they will engage with their schools. but until schools are welcoming and willing to give parents the information they need to engage in the education of their children things won’t change. The first effort needs to be on building the capacity of teachers and schools to reach out to parents. We also surveyed the higher education schools of ed and found that only one of the top 10 schools that provides teachers to DC schools offers any training to teachers about family engagement. There is very little training of teachers - so we designed our own training. We work with 28 schools in Washington DC and we build the capacity of teachers and school leaders to do effective family engagement. We help them build relationships with families through home visits and help them learn how to share the right information with families about their children’s academic progress and how they can support that learning at home.
How did you start engaging with Ashoka?
I worked at Ashoka for seven years. After working there, along the way, whenever I meet somebody who I think meets Ashoka’s criteria I send them Ashoka’s way. I’ve nominated two other Ashoka Fellows in the past: Aleta Margolis and Maurice Lim Miller.
Where did you meet Pam?
About 2 years ago, Catherine Bradley from the City Bridge Foundation, also an Ashoka nominator and friend, brought Pam from NY to DC. She brought together a whole bunch of education people and funders to meet her and hear about her work.
What struck you most about her work?
I was struck by the fact that she realized that many of the children in high poverty schools have experienced severe trauma and are extremely stressed out. They have mental health issues as a result and often aren’t getting the help they need. So they act out their trauma in their every day lives, which happens to be at school. She identifies the most troubled children and gets them what they need. It’s incredible that helping the five percent of children that need help can improve the entire school dramatically. The ripple effects are really quite extraordinary.
We are pleased to introduce you to Ashoka Fellow Cristi Hegranes, founder of Global Press Institute.
Cristi is developing a new, better quality, and more sustainable model of international journalism that is rooted in the perspective of local communities – and especially women from those communities.
In her one on one interview with us on Forbes.com, Cristi shares how she tosses and turns thinking about the dangerous blend of a flimsy media and a tumultuous world. Instead of dwelling on the problem, she made it her mission to revive the field of international journalism. She left her role as a foreign correspondent in Nepal to pursue a crazy idea. She says:”I am grateful for the naïve inspiration that propelled me to follow my dreams.”
It is thanks to Ashoka trend spotter Ryan Blitstein that we first heard of Cristi’s work. Today, we take a moment to learn more about him and what struck him about Cristi and the Global Press Institute.
Q & A WITH ASHOKA TREND SPOTTER RYAN BLITSTEIN
Ryan is the President & CEO of Change Illinois, a coalition leading systemic political and government reform in the state. Ryan also serves as a volunteer member of the Chicago Committee of Human Rights Watch and as board treasurer of Global Press Institute. He advises dozens of local, national, and global non-profits and is a frequent speaker and writer on impact and social innovation.
What social issue most motivates you and how do you make change in your community ?
I am a strong believer in equality of opportunity. Every baby born into this world should have the chance to live out his or her potential as a human and a citizen. Unfortunately, that’s far from today’s reality. We can see sharp differences in the lives of haves or have-nots in a place like rural Ghana where Global Press Institute reports, or right here in Chicago, where just a few miles from gorgeous, bustling boulevards and skyscrapers, children are going hungry and living in fear of violence every day. These are structural, societal issues, and right now I am making change in our community by concentrating at the system level, building up the fundamentals of democracy in our state. At CHANGE Illinois! we are working toward a vision of an Illinois that is a model for fair, honest, open, effective government.
How did you start engaging with Ashoka?
I had been hearing about Ashoka for years, because many of the change agents I knew and respected most had been on staff or become Fellows. I first engaged with the organization in 2010, when Marjorie Craig Benton, a true giant of social change in the Midwest and far beyond, insisted that I meet Bill Drayton. The U.S. program asked me to be on the lookout for social entrepreneurs, and I’ve been looking ever since.
Where did you meet the Fellow you nominated?
Cristi and I once worked side by side at San Francisco Weekly. I remember when she told me about the concept that would become Global Press Institute (GPI). I tried to be supportive, but I was thinking, “This’ll never work.” I am so glad she proved me wrong, and I am so proud to have been one of the people who helped her succeed.
What struck you most about her work?
A few years into GPI’s development, I began to see the organization evolve and expand to something much more ambitious and systemic than the original vision. It was suddenly, simultaneously addressing so many problems—economic development, women’s empowerment, community change, the decline of international news. And all in a financially sustainable way. I still don’t know how Cristi figured it all out and made it happen. It’s brilliant.
In early May, Ashoka teamed up with the team at Wondros to bring together a handful of amazing thinkers and doers from both the social impact and creative worlds, to examine what it takes to advance an idea in place of a program, and to identify the ingredients of modern-day movement-building. What follows is a transcript from a talk given by Andrew Mangino, Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Future Project.
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We started The Future Project about two and a half years ago. I was in Washington, DC as a speechwriter. Like a lot of young people in my generation, there was a lot of excitement after the presidential election—seen in things like the “Yes We Can” video created here—and many of us went to DC. I went to be a speechwriter to Joe Biden. And by the way, if you’re thinking about storytelling, Joe Biden is the best storyteller you’ll ever encounter.
I was in DC and felt this incredible sense of possibility, like so many people. But I started talking to my friends, and we all felt a certain lack of fulfillment. There was all this amazing energy, but we were wondering what’s the common purpose: what’s the call to action that’s going to drive our generation to change the world, not just win an election? Many people had been fired up by the election not because of any particular policy, but because there was this new sense of possibility in America.
The point came up earlier about the interplay between things happening by accident versus planned change, and it’s one that we’ve been wrestling since Day 1. I was mentoring a student in a DC school at the time. Judging by the statistics, it was one of the most struggling schools in America, just a few blocks from where I was living in DC. There was a complete disconnect between that school and the community and the energy that I, and so many people I knew, felt.
In early May, Ashoka teamed up with the team at Wondros to bring together a handful of amazing thinkers and doers from both the social impact and creative worlds, to examine what it takes to advance an idea in place of a program, and to identify the ingredients of modern-day movement-building. What follows is a transcript from a talk given by Ashoka Fellow Tim Carpenter, Founder and Executive Director of EngAGE and host and producer of Experience Talks.
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I founded EngAGE 15-16 years ago now, and I worked in senior healthcare for ten years before that, so I’ve been basically working with older adults since I was four years old.
I’m Irish, so I’m kind of genetically disposed to storytelling: we’re the world’s greatest liars, and storytelling was a competitive sport in my family that usually happened at the dinner table. I learned very early that older people told the better stories, so I ended up at that end of the dinner table, in part because that’s also where the dessert went.
We provide programs primarily in independent, low-income senior housing communities. And when I first walked into my first one, what they had on the wall to look forward to every week were two things: one was bingo, and the other was donuts. And I thought, “I’m going to be a genius in this industry if that’s the bar that I have to jump over.”
I looked for a model for how to change it, and there wasn’t really anything cool going on. So I thought, “What’s another model that I could apply to this?” And I thought about college, because if you look at college through the right sort of goggles, it’s a similar sort of launching-off point. In college, you’ve gone from high school to a new place, a new community, and there’s this sense that, “I can do anything with the rest of my life”. Somebody hands you a catalog, and you start picking which kinds of things you want to be doing each week, and who you are, and what you want to become.
In early May, Ashoka teamed up with the team at Wondros to bring together a handful of amazing thinkers and doers from both the social impact and creative worlds, to examine what it takes to advance an idea in place of a program, and to identify the ingredients of modern-day movement-building. What follows is a transcript from a talk given by Ashoka Fellow Ai-jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) and Co-director of the Caring Across Generations.
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I wanted to start by introducing you to my grandmother. She’s 87-years-old, and she lives in El Hambre in a retirement community for Chinese American retirees. And she lives a really good life. She lives independently in her own apartment, and she watches kung fu soap operas, and she goes to church twice a week, and she plays Mahjong–she’s an incredible Mahjong shark; don’t take her on. She really does live a good life. She taught me most of the things that are valuable and useful to me in my life today. She potty-trained me, and that was useful, and she also taught me most of the values that I hold true. And one of the things that she always used to say is that we should always appreciate the people in our lives who take care of us because care-giving is life’s greatest gift. So one of the things that I wanted you to do as we go through this presentation is to call up someone in your life who’s taken care of you, who you really appreciate, and just think about the value of that relationship in your life.
Let’s take a moment to think about those people. Now let’s give a round of applause to the people in our lives who play that role.
My grandmother lives a great life, and she’s fully independent, and the secret to her independence is this woman named Mrs. Sun, who is her care-giver, and comes to her house three times a week to help her with the things that she can no longer do on her own: cooking, heavy lifting, taking her to some appointments, washing—some of the stuff that’s just harder for her to do on her own. Mrs. Sun also took care of my grandfather before he passed away. He had a stroke which left him paralyzed on half of his body, so she actually used to come seven days a week for 12 hours a day to support both of them. Needless to say, Mrs. Sun has played an incredibly important role in our family’s lives, and in our community, and really in the economy.
Millions of domestic workers like her are doing that work, supporting American families, every single day. At least 2 million workers are going and taking care of the most precious elements of our lives every single day: our children, our aging loved ones, our homes, so that we can go to work knowing that the things we value most are in good hands.
And despite this really, really important role that domestic workers play in our communities and in the economy, they’re among the most vulnerable workers in the economy. We see all kinds of abuses: everything from human trafficking, to not being paid for years on end, to sexual assault and violence. And there’s the whole spectrum: there are some employers who are really wonderful, and then you get the whole end of the spectrum, in which there’s nothing mediating that relationship. We compare it to the Wild West, because you never know what you’re going to get.
In early May, Ashoka teamed up with the team at Wondros to bring together a handful of amazing thinkers and doers from both the social impact and creative worlds, to examine what it takes to advance an idea in place of a program, and to identify the ingredients of modern-day movement-building. What follows is a transcript from a talk given by Ashoka Fellow Eric Dawson, Co-Founder and President of Peace First.
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I founded Peace First almost 21 years ago. I’d been a sort of pissy kid, and founded it around this idea that we have a narrative about young people in this country—and I actually think it’s global—which is that we tend to think about young people as the future. “You’re going to be a great artist someday,” or a great writer or a great whatever, which is sort of like saying you’re not a great writer or a great artist now. So we have a potential narrative for young people.
We have a victim narrative for young people, so young people are things we need to protect or keep safe. We have a lot of resources in keeping kids safe and protecting them and keeping them healthy. And then we have a narrative around perpetrators: young people are violent. They’re dangerous. They’re black and brown, they have AK-47s. So we incarcerate young people. We medicate young people. We turn our schools into prisons—literally, with metal detectors and police officers, or spiritually, with these sort of deadening, zero-tolerance policies: don’t talk in the halls; sit in your seat.
We’ve been really interested in this question of how we create a counter narrative. One part is this idea that young people are the present: they’re leaders, they’re organizers. The other is that they’re powerful: that young people can effect change. And the third is that they’re positive. They’re hungry to be called to something. That’s language for us around peace-making—so when we talk about peace-making, we’re talking about the critical skills of social-emotional learning—empathy, perspective-taking, conflict resolution—married to the critical skills of creativity and civic engagement. How do we unleash young people’s moral imaginations?
This week, we introduce you to Saru Jayaraman’s work. Saru is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of ROC-United. With her team, she is reforming the restaurant industry’s employment practices by aligning worker, employer and consumer interests.
We got up-close-and-personal with her in a recent interview published on Forbes.com. Saru recently released a book Behind The Kitchen Door to spread awareness about this work. Check out if she’s passing through your town soon.
We’re also putting a spotlight on Alexandra Kent, who brought Saru’s work to our attention, eventually leading to her election as an Ashoka Fellow. Thanks, Alex! We need more trend-spotters like you.
If you know someone who is tackling an important social problem with the same sort of innovative outlook and entrepreneurial strategy, let us know!
Q & A WITH TREND-SPOTTER ALEXANDRA KENT
Alexandra Kent is a Program Director at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.
What social issue motivates you most?
Over the past year, I have been conducting research on ways people discuss, measure and promote economic security and mobility for all. I’ve been really excited about innovators who work to help low-income workers and families become upwardly mobile, gain access to career ladders and improve the future prospects of their children.
When did you start engaging with Ashoka?
I started working with Ashoka Fellows in my last job when I was director of The Purpose Prize, which offers older adults in encore careers $100,000 and national recognition for putting their lifelong experience and passion to work for the social good. A few Purpose Prize winners became Ashoka Fellows and vise versa, and once I learned about Ashoka I kept my eyes peeled for people I could nominate from my community in Northern California.
Where did you meet the Fellow you nominated?
I sat in on a telephone interview with Saru the first month I started my new job–she is a member of two networks Insight runs that aim to close racial wealth gaps and reduce racial employment and income disparities– and I was blown away by her passion and vision. She is a very creative social entrepreneur who helps improve conditions and career ladders for people working all along our food chain. Her mission resonated on a personal level. When I met my partner, he was a recent immigrant working in a restaurant and I was dismayed when I would hear how rampant wage theft and discrimination were within the restaurant industry. Hearing about Saru’s work made me realize that there are solutions and ways to lift low wage restaurant workers’ voices.
What struck you most about her work?
She is versatile. Her organization uses a variety of strategies to get the job done: research, organizing, advocacy, consumer education, storytelling, and inventing new tools, even apps, to spread the word and engage the public.
This week, we spent some time with Catherine Rohr, one of our newest Ashoka Fellows who is helping former prisoners harness their entrepreneurial talents by pairing them with business leaders to create new businesses. She talks to us about how being the first girl on the boy’s high school wrestling team taught her important lessons in resilience and the importance of giving people first chances, let alone second ones. Read her interview on Forbes.com.
Our team learned about Catherine and her work at Defy Ventures thanks to trend-spotter Alexa Clay. Keep reading to learn why Alexa is so intrigued by the importance of misfits in society.
Q & A WITH ASHOKA TREND-SPOTTER ALEXA CLAY
Alexa describes herself as social entrepreneur, a poet, a collaborator, a dreamer, and an economic historian. She is currently writing The Misfit Economy, which explores stories of innovation from the world’s informal and black markets.
What social issue motivates you most?
I’m most motivated by the power of misfits. The kind of change we can all achieve when we are deeply connected to what makes us unique and authentic.
When did you start engaging with Ashoka?
I first learned about Ashoka through Ashoka’s Changemakers work with Nike. I then started working for Ashoka to see if a network for changemakers could be created within corporations. How could we do for social intrapreneurs what Ashoka has done for social entrepreneurs?
Where did you meet Catherine?
I met Cat in New York when I interviewed her for the Misfit Economy. A few months later I attended a weekend for their first graduating class of ex-cons and was blown away by the energy and excitement in the room. Not only did the entrepreneurs have great pitches, but it was clear that they had really taken themselves on through this process. Many were graduating as different men. And it was exciting to see them being recognized by family and friends for that.
What struck you most about her work?
What I love about Cat and her work is how human transformation cuts through the Defy program. You’re not just teaching entrepreneurship to ex-cons. You’re acknowledging these guys for where they’ve come from - and what they’ve achieved by being gangsters and drug dealers. You’re taking their street talents and helping to direct those skills into the formal world of entrepreneurship. It’s deeply humanizing to recognize that these guys already have talent and then work to give them opportunities to compete in the formal economy.
As part of our five week spot light on newly elected Ashoka Fellows and their Trend-Spotters, we invite you to learn about Seth Flaxman’s motivation behind founding Turbovote: simplifying the voting process and revitalizing American democracy. Read his one-on-one interview with Ashoka on Forbes.com.
Below you’ll also learn about David Lubell who brought Seth’s work to our attention, eventually leading to his election as an Ashoka Fellow. If you know someone who is tackling an important social problem with the same sort of innovative outlook and entrepreneurial strategy, let us know!
Q&A WITH ASHOKA FELLOW DAVID LUBELL
David founded Welcoming America, a national grassroots collaborative, to create a welcoming atmosphere – community by community – in which immigrants are more likely to integrate into the social fabric of their adopted hometowns. He was elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2012.
What social issue motivates you most?
The issues of immigration and inclusion motivate me most. We need to radically change the way we think about immigrant integration in this country. For too long, we’ve forgotten about a critical part of the equation when we think about integration - the receiving community. Addressing the fears and concerns that some native-born residents often associate with rapid immigrant growth must be part of the process if we want to build the welcoming atmosphere needed for inclusion. Figuring this out is what I work on and think about every day.
When did you start engaging with Ashoka?
I first learned about Ashoka through the David Bornstein book “How to Change the World”, about 10 years ago. I knew I wanted to be an Ashoka Fellow from the first chapter of the book. In 2012, I heard from Hanae Baruchel, on Ashoka’s team. The Fellow selection process was stimulating and thought provoking and the same has been true since I’ve become an Ashoka Fellow. Ashoka has helped us in a lot of different ways since 2012 by connecting us to people, ideas and resources and acting as a megaphone for our work.
Where did you meet the Fellow you spotted?
I met Seth at the Draper Richards Kaplan retreat in May 2011. The Foundation supports social entrepreneurs that want to take their work to scale. Seth and I really connected and I decided to nominate him for an Ashoka Fellowship.
What struck you about his work?
I’ve worked at the intersection of community organizing and civic participation for a long time and I have been consistently surprised by how untouched by technology voter participation efforts remain. The voting process is confusing and looks different from precinct to precinct. It kind of baffles me that we’ve been able to put a man on the moon but can’t figure out how to vote. When I met Seth it was immediately clear that he understood the gaps in voter participation systems really well. He has figured out an effective way to unlock the power of technology to address these gaps.
As part of our five week spot light on our newly elected Ashoka Fellows and their Trend-Spotters, we invite you to learn about Kendis Paris’ motivation behind co-founding Truckers Against Trafficking on our blog. With thousands of truckers around the country, she is turning the trucking industry into a critical force against human trafficking – a model replicable across transportation modes. Read her one-on-one interview with Ashoka on Forbes.com.
We also invite you to learn about Jim Greenbaum who brought her work to our attention, eventually leading to her election as an Ashoka Fellow. If you know someone who is tackling an important social problem with the same sort of innovative outlook and entrepreneurial strategy, let us know!
Q & A WITH ASHOKA TREND-SPOTTER JIM GREENBAUM
Jim is a serial entrepreneur and founder of the Greenbaum Foundation. A long-time Ashoka supporter and trend-spotter, he was the first to flag Fellow Kendis Paris’ work to us.
What social issue motivates you most?
My motivation stems from my philosophy that being a bystander to suffering is not an option. When I first learned of the existence of Modern Day Slavery/Human Trafficking, and the fact that so few resources were being directed towards rescuing victims, I knew I had my work cut out for me. The same later held true when I learned of female genital cutting, and the successful work of Tostan to end the practice and transform social norms throughout communities in Africa. Next came awareness of the high infant and maternal mortality rates in many regions of the world, and some amazing underfunded social entrepreneurs working to save lives.
When did you start engaging with Ashoka?
I first learned of the amazing work of Ashoka at a Renaissance Weekend event in 2006 when I happened to become acquainted with and extremely impressed by Andy Kuper, then the Managing Director of Strategic Partnerships at Ashoka. Not long after, I met Bill Drayton at the Clinton Global Initiative. With my having been a long time member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and also an active member of its Social Enterprise Networks, it only took a few minutes of talking with Bill before I committed to work to create a YPO Ashoka Network. The rest is history.
Where did you meet the Fellow you spotted?
I first met Kendis Paris in May, 2011 at a law enforcement training conference on human trafficking. I listened to her presentation to the attendees. Her vision, drive, and ability to succeed in her passion of combatting human trafficking in the trucking arena were clear to me. I immediately began funding her work, and a year later, I nominated her for an Ashoka Fellowship.
What struck you most about her work?
Kendis created a low cost, highly effective approach to combat human trafficking in the trucking arena with her organization Truckers Against Trafficking. Kendis’ determination to succeed was clear from the start. It has been 20 months since I first met Kendis, and her work and success has impressed me more and more every single month. The numbers of young trafficking victims who have been rescued directly as a result of Kendis’ work grows every week. Kendis made a commitment, and she continues to deliver.
This week, we welcome five new Ashoka Fellows to our network of more than 3,000 social entrepreneurs and every Thursday for the next five weeks, we will be featuring each of these Fellows on our blog hosted by Forbes.com.
You can read about our first featured Fellow, Sarah Hemminger here. Below, you can also learn all about Lennon Flowers, who was among those who helped us spot Sarah in the first place.
Q & A WITH ASHOKA TREND-SPOTTER LENNON FLOWERS
Lennon serves as the Community Director for Ashoka’s Start Empathy initiative, where she leads our efforts to find the next wave of “Empathy Fellows,” and to distill and share the key principles and practices that underpin their work with educators looking to follow their lead. She is the co-founder of The Dinner Party, a collective of men and women out to change the way we approach life after loss, through candid conversation and the art of breaking bread.
What social issue motivates you most?
I can’t say there’s a single issue. If anything, it’s our tendency to conflate circumstance with a lack of potential: to condescend or outright dismiss people because we believe them less than capable, when the reality is we’ve simply failed to create systems through which anyone, at any age, can thrive. So it’s efforts to unlock agency that inspire me most.
When did you start engaging with Ashoka?
I first joined Ashoka in the Fall of 2007, having graduated from college that May. At the time, it was the only place I knew of that could capture a vision as grand as “everyone a changemaker,” while simultaneously taking a very hard look at what real impact actually looks like, and the need to invest both money and trust not just in academics and policy wonks, but in the people who very often lived the problems they sought to address.
Where did you meet the Fellow you spotted?
Our friends at Echoing Green gave me the first tip-off: Sarah became an Echoing Green Fellow in 2009, just after formally launching IMP. I spend much of my time scouring the US in search of what we call “Empathy Fellows”: systems-changing social entrepreneurs who’ve uncovered a powerful means of cultivating empathy, or creating the kinds of conditions in which empathy can thrive. That’s not something you can easily Google, so we tend to find those Fellows the same way we find all Fellows: by relying on our network to surface game-changing ideas in a variety of fields, and then unpacking how they do what they do. I’d worked with Johns Hopkins during the early days of Ashoka U’s Changemaker Campus Initiative, and a few conversations with alumni and faculty still there confirmed our suspicions: Sarah was on to something big.
What struck you most about her work?
It was so simple: Sarah proved that turning around the lives of the kids who’d been virtually written off since birth didn’t require a clinical degree, or the creation of an entirely new school system. What makes IMP work — the commitment to do whatever it takes, to never give up, to, quite simply, love more — are principles that anyone can put into practice. The last cohort of students had an average GPA of .8 upon entering IMP. To date, every single kid has gone on to college, and among the oldest cohort, 66% are due to graduate from college this year. You simply don’t find those kinds of statistics elsewhere. What Sarah’s done is to create a model for how to mobilize an entire community behind a shared challenge: a model for transforming not only the lives of the students they serve, but of every volunteer, and the very communities in which they live.
Aaron Swartz - tech prodigy largely responsible for developing the code behind RSS and parts of Reddit, “Open Access” advocate – took his life on January 11, 2013.
To honor him, friends have launched an awareness campaign about Open Internet and Open Access principles called #pdftribute.
You can read more here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/01/14/aaron_swartz_death_pdftribute_hashtag_aggregates_copyrighted_articles_released.html
RIP Aaron Swartz.
(picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Ashoka Seattle introducing themselves on our bi-weekly team meeting :-)
