Johnny Quirin; Portrait Simple; JEALEX Photo, Getty Images for SXSW; Mike Miriello, James Madison University
Each month we profile a young nonprofit leader who stands out from the pack for an innovative approach to tacking a major issue facing society. Below are stories of leaders who are helping Holocaust survivors, improving nutrition for schoolchildren, supporting groups to solve the water crisis in Flint, Mich., and more — including a young woman who’s helping blacks and Hispanics begin technology careers and who has the attention of Apple and Google.
For more profiles of young leaders, see our 2016 cover story on the 40 Under 40: rebels, builders, and trailblazers who are making their mark in the nonprofit world.
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NewsA Native American Activist Who Tells It Like It Is to Grant Makers
Sarah Eagle Heart helps foundations learn more about Native American communities and their needs. She wishes philanthropy would work harder to learn about those tribes on its own. -
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Foster-Care Veteran Seeks to Use Tech to Ease Transition to Adult Life
Through his nonprofit, Think of Us, Sixto Cancel is testing a mobile app designed to coach young people aging out of their foster homes how to navigate housing, employment, and more. -
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Soccer Program Helps Refugee Children Find Footing in America
Luma Mufleh felt moved to start coaching a ragtag group of kids she spotted playing barefoot in their strange new surroundings. What followed was an improbable journey to create something that could lift them to acceptance. -
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Leader Works to Name — and Tame — Grant-Making Risks
Maya Winkelstein of the Open Road Alliance is on a mission to get foundations to talk with grantees about project pitfalls and how to avoid them. -
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Aetna Foundation Leader Attacks Health Woes as a Social Problem
Garth Graham is focusing grant making on issues like violence and access to fresh food that can have a big impact on public health. -
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Young Leader Works to Meet Needs of Aging Holocaust Survivors
Masha Pearl, 32, who heads the Blue Card, has a personal connection to the cause; all four of her grandparents fled Nazi persecution in Eastern Europe. -
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Flint Water Crisis Proves Mettle of New Foundation Leader
Under the leadership of 37-year-old President Ridgway White, the Mott Foundation provided money to deal with the city’s unsafe water even before a state of emergency had been declared. -
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From Zero to $40 Million: Elite Fundraiser Explains How She Did It
Exhaustive research and tenacity helped Anna Barber raise this tidy sum for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Now she’s striking out on her own. -
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Leader of National-Service Program Has a Hunger for Results
Curt Ellis helped start FoodCorps, a nonprofit whose AmeriCorps program teaches kids about healthy food and nutrition through hands-on activities like gardening and cooking. -
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A Young CEO Seizes Opportunity to Sell Her Group’s Expertise
Aria Finger, 33, brought a track record of innovation and a knack for reaching her generational peers when she ascended last fall to the top job at volunteerism charity DoSomething.org. -
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Nonprofit Leader Uses Data to Help Kids Succeed in School
Tiffany Cooper Gueye has helped expand a national education nonprofit into a model for evaluation, with programs proven to succeed. -
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Apple and Google Intrigued by Upstart Nonprofit’s Effort to Diversify Tech Field
Laura Weidman Powers is expanding a nonprofit — with support from some giant companies — that helps people of color move beyond internships. -
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A Match for Estate Gifts Helps 30-Year-Old Leader Build Endowment
Mike Goorhouse began his career in philanthropy at age 18 as a member of his organization’s youth grant-making group. -
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Charity’s Co-Founder Risks Upending Her Successful Program
Kirsten Lodal, who helped launch the antipoverty group Lift while she was a college sophomore, says the group initially tried to be all things to all people but had better success after it narrowed its focus. -
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37-Year-Old Rises Fast to Lead Fundraising at His Alma Mater
For 20 years, Nick Langridge has been an overachiever at James Madison University. Now he’s raising big dollars for it. -
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40 Under 40: Young Leaders Who Are Solving the Problems of Today — and Tomorrow
Philanthropy has long suffered the reputation, rightly or wrongly, that it is a stuffy, formal field of conservative approaches. No more. The nonprofit world today is getting pulled in all directions by a host of new ideas about how work for the common good can be carried out and financed.
