Beyond the Summit: Strengthening Democracy

Priya Shanker is the Executive Director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS). In her role, Priya sets the strategy and vision to fulfill Stanford PACS’ mission to create a shared space for scholars, students, and practitioners to inform policy and social innovation, philanthropic investment, and nonprofit practice.

Priya has devoted much of her career to strengthening the policy and operational infrastructure for philanthropy and social innovation around the world through programs and partnerships that leverage diverse resources to enable long-term impact. Prior to joining Stanford PACS, she spent over a decade working with a diverse array of for-profit and social impact organizations in the US, India, Ghana and China. 

Priya is a leading voice on issues related to the state of philanthropy and civil society and has spoken on these topics at major conferences and convenings for leaders in philanthropy, civil society, business, and government. Priya earned her MBA in Finance and Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, was published in Sept. 2018. His latest book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, was published in May 2022.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004.

Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), and Aarhus University (Denmark), and the Pardee Rand Graduate School. He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

Rachel Pritzker is President and Founder of the Pritzker Innovation Fund, which supports the development and advancement of paradigm-shifting ideas to address the world’s most wicked problems. The Fund is primarily focused on U.S. Democracy and Climate and Energy.

Rachel is chair of the Democracy Funders Network, a cross-ideological learning and action community for donors concerned about the health of American democracy, and is co-founder of Patriots & Pragmatists, a network and convening space through which civic leaders and influencers debate, envision, and realize a brighter future for American democracy. In addition to serving as chair of the board of Third Way, Rachel is chair of the board of the Breakthrough Institute, a global research center that identifies and promotes technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges, as well as chair of the board of the Energy for Growth Hub, a global nonprofit network designed to promote energy solutions aligned with countries’ own development ambitions by connecting data, research, and evidence with policymakers.

Rachel is a co-author of An Ecomodernist Manifesto, which advocates an abundance-based, politically pragmatic approach to tackling ecological challenges while fulfilling human aspirations. Rachel attended Brown University, where she majored in Latin American studies.

Nate Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science and Communication. He is the founding codirector of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center and its Program on Democracy and the Internet.  His scholarship focuses on the “Law of Democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for numerous states and as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. He is coauthor of the leading election law casebook, “The Law of Democracy”, a volume on “Social Media and Democracy,” and most recently, he coedited “The Digitalist Papers: Artificial Intelligence and Democracy in America” (2024). His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim and  Andrew Carnegie Fellow examines the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration. 

Sam Gill is the president and CEO of the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF), a New York-headquartered, national philanthropic organization that operates five national grantmaking programs—in the performing arts, the environment, medical research, child and family well-being, and mutual understanding between communities—as well as Duke Farms and Shangri La, two centers that serve the public directly. Prior to joining DDF, Gill was senior vice president and chief program officer at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, where he oversaw more than $100 million in annual grantmaking across the foundation’s programs, in addition to managing Knight’s research and assessment portfolio and its grants administration function.

Named one of the Time 100’s 2025 100 Most Influential People In The World, as well as one of The NonProfit Times’s Power & Influence Top 50 and their 2025 Influencer of the Year, Skye Perryman is the President & CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonpartisan, national legal organization that promotes democracy and progress through litigation, regulatory engagement, policy education, and research. Perryman is known for developing innovative legal strategies, building unique communities and coalitions, and values-based leadership.

Under Skye’s leadership, Democracy Forward has played a leading role in protecting the American people from harmful and unlawful federal executive action, including securing a nationwide order stopping the freeze on federal funding and essential services, blocking the detainment of unaccompanied migrant children, opposing executive actions that undermine diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, blocking attempts to withhold federal funds for public schools and direct service providers for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, and opposing attempts to politicize our nation’s non-partisan civil service.

Mike Berkowitz (he/him) is Co-Founder and Principal at Third Plateau, where he leads the firm’s Democracy practice and works across its Philanthropic Management and Jewish Community Impact portfolios. Mike is an experienced facilitator, strategist, philanthropic advisor, and grantmaker. He specializes in weaving networks, curating philanthropic learning, and developing strategies for addressing complex challenges.

A leader in the movement to revitalize U.S. democracy, Mike serves as Executive Director of the Democracy Funders Network, a cross-ideological learning and action community for donors concerned about the health of American democracy. He is also co-founder of Patriots & Pragmatists, a network and convening space through which civic leaders and influencers debate, envision, and realize a brighter future for American democracy.

Mike is a 21/64-certified philanthropy consultant and has counseled numerous individual donors, family foundations, institutional foundations, and funder networks on their philanthropic strategies. He is a Senior Advisor to the Pritzker Innovation Fund, which supports the development and advancement of paradigm-shifting ideas to address the world’s most wicked problems, with a primary focus on climate and energy and on U.S. democracy. Mike is also a Senior Advisor to the John Pritzker Family Fund. In that role, he advises the foundation on its strategy, governance, grantmaking, and communications, and helps to oversee its investments in Democracy & Civic Health and Jewish Life.

Mike is a board member of Persuasion, a publication and community for people committed to the values of a free society, and is a strategic advisor to A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy, which is organizing and mobilizing the American Jewish community to protect and strengthen American democracy.

Prior to founding Third Plateau, Mike served as Senior Vice President for Operations and Strategy at the Bonner Group, Inc., a nonprofit and Democratic political fundraising firm in Washington, DC. Before joining the Bonner Group, he worked at Mammen, Pritchard & Associates, a Democratic direct mail firm on Capitol Hill. Previously, he was the Public Policy Fellow at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Mike has a B.A. in History, magna cum laude, from Brown University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

A native of New York City, Mike lives with his family in Berkeley, California. He enjoys spy thrillers and a good meal in a new city, and is in awe of anyone who can speak more than one language.

Jennifer Pahlka is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, s senior advisor to the Abundance Network, and the founding board chair of the Recoding America Fund. She served as deputy chief technology officer of the United States under President Obama and a member of the Defense Innovation Board under both Obama and Trump. She founded the award-winning nonprofit Code for America, which she led for ten years. Pahlka is the winner of a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and was selected by Wired magazine as one of the people who have most shaped technology and society in the past twenty-five years. Ezra Klein called her book Recoding America “one of the best policy books I have ever read” and “the book I wish all policymakers would read.”

Rob Reich is the McGregor-Girand Professor of Social Ethics of Science and Technology at Stanford University. His home appointment is in the Department of Political Science, and he has courtesy appointments in Philosophy, the Graduate School of Education, and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is senior fellow at the Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence. From April 2024 to January 2025, Rob was on public service leave to serve as Senior Advisor to the newly established United States Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute.

His scholarship in political theory engages with the work of social scientists and engineers. His newest work is on governance of frontier science and technology. His most recent books are System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot (with Mehran Sahami and Jeremy M. Weinstein, 2021) and Digital Technology and Democratic Theory (edited with Lucy Bernholz and Hélène Landemore, 2021). He has also written widely about philanthropy, including Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (2018) and Philanthropy in Democratic Societies: History, Institutions, Values (edited with Chiara Cordelli and Lucy Bernholz, 2016). He has testified before Congress and written widely for the public, including for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, Time Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Rob is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the Walter J. Gores award, Stanford’s highest honor for teaching. He was a sixth grade teacher at Rusk Elementary School in Houston, Texas before attending graduate school. He is a board member of the magazine Boston Review and at the Spencer Foundation. He helped to create the global movement #GivingTuesday and serves as chair of its board.

Brandice Canes-Wrone is a professor in the political science department and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. She is also the director of the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions. Her current research focuses on representation and accountability, including projects on elections, campaign finance, and representation.

During the course of her career, Canes-Wrone has published numerous articles and books in the areas of political institutions, mass political behavior, and political economy. On political institutions, she has a longstanding interest in executive politics. Her book Who Leads Whom? Presidents, Policy, and Public (University of Chicago, 2006) was awarded the Richard E. Neustadt prize by the American Political Science Association for the best book on the US presidency that year. More recent scholarship involves comparative analysis of how institutional constraints on the executive are associated with economic performance.

Other current research focuses on accountability and representation in the US context. She coedited Accountability Reconsidered: Voters, Interests, and Information in US Policymaking (Cambridge University Press, 2023) with Chuck Cameron, Sandy Gordon, and Greg Huber, and in this volume she and Michael Kistner examine how changes in the US local media are associated with developments in congressional electoral accountability. Additionally, she has a series of recent publications on campaign finance, including on the motivations of campaign donors (with Michael Barber and Sharece Thrower) congressional members’ responsiveness to donors (with Kenneth Miller, and in separate work, Nathan Gibson), and comparing the attitudes of donors to other constituencies (with Michael Barber, Josh Clinton, and Greg Huber).

Canes-Wrone is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has served on the editorial boards of numerous political science and political economy journals. She has also served on the boards of the American National Elections Studies, the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, and the Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, including as President of this section.

Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, Canes-Wrone was on the faculties of MIT, Northwestern, and Princeton. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a PhD from Stanford.

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America’s postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

As the Executive Director of Civic Health Project, a grantmaking and operating philanthropy, Kristin is dedicated to advancing scalable solutions to our dangerous divisions in the U.S. and globally.

During Kristin’s tenure, Civic Health Project has awarded more than 80 catalytic grants, funded the Strengthening Democracy Challenge, launched Bridge Entertainment Labs, launched the Mismatch school-based dialogue platform, co-chaired the Bridging Goals & Measures Working Group, and co-founded the U.S. Citizen Assembly and Deliberation Allies (CADA) forum. 

In addition to her role at Civic Health Project, Kristin Serves as a Co-Chair of the More Perfect campaign, a Co-Chair of the global Council on Technology and Social Cohesion, and an advisory board member for Listen First Project, More Perfect Union, and Business for America. She also serves as a frequent lecturer and coach in strategic communications at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Prior to her current work in civil discourse, Kristin held senior executive roles at IBM, Intel, and multiple start-up software companies. She holds a BA in Political Science and an MA in International Policy Studies from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Mr. Patrick is Senior Partner at The Vistria Group, a private investment firm that seeks to deliver both superior financial returns and meaningful impact. He serves as the David R. Gergen Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was Co-Director of the Center for Public Leadership from 2022 to 2024. Prior to joining The Vistria Group, Mr. Patrick was the founder and former Managing Partner of Bain Capital Double Impact. Before that, from January 2007 to January 2015, he served as Governor of Massachusetts. He has been a senior executive in two Fortune 50 companies, a partner in two Boston law firms, and by appointment of President Bill Clinton, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the United States Justice Department. He is a Rockefeller Fellow, a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and the author of two books. Mr. Patrick earned an AB cum laude from Harvard College and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Priya Shanker is the Executive Director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS). In her role, Priya sets the strategy and vision to fulfill Stanford PACS’ mission to create a shared space for scholars, students, and practitioners to inform policy and social innovation, philanthropic investment, and nonprofit practice.

Priya has devoted much of her career to strengthening the policy and operational infrastructure for philanthropy and social innovation around the world through programs and partnerships that leverage diverse resources to enable long-term impact. Prior to joining Stanford PACS, she spent over a decade working with a diverse array of for-profit and social impact organizations in the US, India, Ghana and China. 

Priya is a leading voice on issues related to the state of philanthropy and civil society and has spoken on these topics at major conferences and convenings for leaders in philanthropy, civil society, business, and government. Priya earned her MBA in Finance and Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Dr. Cecilia Conrad is the founder and chief executive officer of Lever for Change and a senior advisor at the MacArthur Foundation. Lever for Change connects donors with problem solvers to find and fund bold, effective solutions to accelerate social change. Her team has influenced over $2.2 billion in grants and supported more than 175 organizations. Before founding Lever for Change, Conrad led the MacArthur Fellows program. The Nonprofit Times named her to its Top 50 Power & Influence List in 2023 and 2024, and Inside Philanthropy named her one of the 50 most powerful women in philanthropy in 2023. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Conrad is an emerita professor of economics with Pomona College, joining the faculty in 1995 and retiring in 2013. At Pomona, she also served as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college, and later as acting president. In recognition of her academic research and advocacy around racial and gender equity, Conrad received the National Economic Association’s Samuel V. Westerfield Award and the National Urban League’s Women of Power Award. 

She earned a B.A. from Wellesley College where she also received the 2023 Alumnae Achievement Award and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

Brian Hooks is chairman and CEO of Stand Together, a philanthropic community that works with business leaders and philanthropists to address the country’s biggest challenges[MW1] . Brian is also president of the Charles Koch Foundation. Previously, he served as executive director and COO of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he led strategy and operations for a growing research, education, and public policy center. He is co-author with Charles Koch of the national bestseller Believe in People: Bottom Up Solutions for a Top Down World.

In 2021, the TIME100 Next list recognized Brian as a leader shaping the future of his field. Brian serves on the boards of the Mercatus Center, Cosmos Institute, Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), Institute for Humane Studies, Reason Foundation, and The Just Trust. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife and daughter.

With a career spanning public service, politics, business, nonprofits, and technology, Don Gips is a Strategic Counselor and CEO Emeritus to the Skoll Foundation. In this role, he provides high-level guidance and support to the leadership team, our community of Awardees and grantees, and the Board of Directors.

From 2019 to 2025, Don served as Chief Executive Officer of the Skoll Foundation, leading its work to invest in, connect, and champion social innovators around the world.

In 2008, Gips helped lead President Barack Obama’s transition team and then served in the White House as his Director of Presidential Personnel at the beginning of the Administration. From there he went on to serve as U.S. Ambassador to South Africa from 2009 to 2013. There he was recognized for his efforts to promote improved relations with South Africa when the U.S. State Department chose him as the recipient of the 2010 Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service.

During the Clinton Administration, he served as Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore and Chief of the International Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission. At the FCC, he helped design the first spectrum auctions for licenses to utilize the continuum of frequencies used to provide wireless services ranging from radio broadcasting to mobile communications and satellite services.

In 1993, he helped create the framework for what would become the U.S. national service program, AmeriCorps, that continues to enroll more than 200,000 Americans each year in public service.

Gips has also held various roles in the private sector. He was head of Corporate Development at Level 3 Communications; led the Africa practice at Albright Stonebridge Group; and served as a venture partner at Columbia Capital and a Senior Advisor at Blackstone. He began his private sector career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

He currently sits on the board of CassTech, Africa’s leading provider of information and telecommunications services, and is on the Board of the Nelson Mandela

Children’s Fund US. He has also served on the boards of Zayo, Mindspeed, Liquid, Omnispace, and Nextnav.

Don received an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. He is married to Elizabeth (Liz) Berry Gips. Don and Liz have three grown sons: Sam, Peter, and Ben.

Nancy Lindborg has served as the president and CEO of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation since August 2020. Through international and domestic grantmaking, the Foundation works with people and communities to create ensuring solutions for just societies and a healthy, resilient natural world. 

Nancy has spent most of her career working internationally on democracy, civil society, conflict resolution, and humanitarian response. She previously served as the president and CEO of the U.S. Institute of Peace; as the assistant administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID; and as president of Mercy Corps. She previously lived and worked in Nepal and Central Asia.   

Nancy currently serves on the boards of the ClimateWorks Foundation and International Crisis Group, and as an advisory council member of the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity. 

Nancy holds a B.A. and an M.A. in English literature from Stanford University and an M.A. in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Angela Filo is the co-founder of Skyline Foundation, a family foundation that funds local, national, and global organizations addressing problems at their roots and shifting systems toward a more equitable and just future. Skyline works in four program areas: climate solutions, just democracy, equity in education and birth justice. Within the Just Democracy program, Skyline is focused on strengthening the foundations of a just, democratic society through defending civil rights and civil liberties, advancing economic security policy, and increasing access to news and information that holds power to account and builds trust of communities. The foundation seeks to create lasting partnerships with grantees that align with the principles of trust-based philanthropy and the time horizon needed to create and sustain change.

Filo serves on the board of directors of ProPublica and the advisory board of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She is a former trustee of Stanford University, where she continues to serve on the advisory boards of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and the Haas Center for Public Service. She co-chaired the American Civil Liberties Union’s national Centennial Campaign and previously served on the board of the Student Press Law Center. Earlier in her career, Filo taught high school journalism and photography, exhibited her photography projects, created public artworks, and worked for publishing and nonprofit organizations.

With more than 30 years of philanthropic and nonprofit experience, Crystal has a track record of forging innovative partnerships to strengthen communities and civil society.  As Executive Director of the Libra Foundation, she brought a fresh vision of philanthropy that rejected business as usual and was responsive to the needs of frontline communities. She launched the Democracy Frontlines Fund, a pooled fund of 15 foundations that raised more than $75 million in unrestricted, multi-year support to strengthen Black communities’ democratic participation.

Crystal is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Prior to Libra, Crystal served as CEO of the Blue Shield of California Foundation, where she spearheaded public policy engagement that helped push forward the Affordable Care Act.  She was part of the founding team at The California Wellness Foundation, where she led a groundbreaking initiative to shift youth violence prevention from a criminal justice issue to a public health effort. She founded the MediCal Policy Institute, an offshoot of the California HealthCare Foundation. Crystal serves on the boards of the Democracy Fund, Essie Justice Group, and Community Change. She frequently writes and publishes on leading edge topics in philanthropy. Inside Philanthropy named Crystal “2021 Foundation Leader of the Year” and “One of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Philanthropy” in 2023.

John Bridgeland is Executive Chairman of the Office of American Possibilities, a civic moonshot factory that taps the entrepreneurial talent of Americans to solve public challenges together across divides. In that capacity, he is Executive Chairman & CEO of More Perfect, a bipartisan initiative with 37 Presidential Centers (from Washington’s Mount Vernon through the Obama Foundation), National Archives Foundation, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and 100 partners to protect and renew American democracy by advancing 5 foundational Democracy Goals; CEO of the COVID Collaborative that partnered with the Ad Council on a $330 million vaccination education campaign; and Co-Chairman of Welcome.US to enable Americans to support the resettlement of Afghan, Ukrainian and other refugees. Bridgeland is also Founding CEO & Vice Chairman of Malaria No More, launched at the White House Summit on Malaria he co-led. Since 2001, more than 14 million lives have been saved from malaria. 

He has been a leader for 20 years on the high school dropout challenge, with his report The Silent Epidemic generating a TIME cover story and two Oprah Shows, co-development of a civic marshal plan to address it, and co-leadership of the Grad Nation campaign.  His work was the subject of the lead cover story in the August 2024 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Graduation rates climbed from 71 percent in 2000 to 86.5 percent in 2020, translating into over 5 million more students graduating rather than dropping out.  He is also author of the book, Heart of the Nation: Volunteering and America’s Civic Spirit, which was reissued in paperback on the 15th anniversary of 9/11 with a foreword by General Stanley McChrystal.

In 2010, President Obama appointed Bridgeland to the White House Council for Community Solutions. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Bridgeland to serve as Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and then as Assistant to the President and first Director of the Freedom Corps, where he grew national service opportunities to historic levels after 9/11. He co-chaired the White House Task Force for Disadvantaged Youth, co-led the Cabinet-level review of Climate Change, and co-chaired the White House Task Force on the Revitalization of New York City after 9/11. 

Bridgeland graduated with honors in government from Harvard University, where he played on the Varsity Tennis Team, and received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He has delivered commencement addresses at the College of William and Mary, John Hopkins University, and half a dozen other colleges and has been awarded honorary degrees.  Bridgeland is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio.  He lives with his wife, Maureen, in McLean, Virginia, and has three children, Caily, Fallon, and Regis. 

Jeff Raikes is a co-founder of the Raikes Foundation with his wife, Tricia. The foundation works toward a fair and just future where all young people have the support they need to achieve their full potential. Key areas of focus include reimagining an educational system that creates conditions for all students to succeed; ensuring housing stability for youth; building a fair and representative democracy; and advancing impact-driven philanthropy.

Jeff is the former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he led the foundation’s efforts to expand opportunity and improve outcomes for people around the world. Before joining the foundation, Jeff was president of Microsoft’s Business Division and served as a member of the company’s senior leadership team that set the overall strategy and direction for the company. 

Currently, he is part of the ownership group of the Seattle Mariners and serves on its board. He also serves on the boards of Costco Wholesale Corporation, the Raikes School at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Green Diamond Resource Company, EpiCrop Technologies, EpiMethyl Analytics, Lumen Bioscience, and Hudl. After ten years of board service, Jeff is Chair Emeritus of Stanford University.

Patricia Bromley is Associate Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology at Stanford University.  She currently shares the Faculty Co-Directorship at Stanford PACS with Robb Willer. Tricia’s research investigates the social and cultural underpinnings of sustainable development problems and solutions, promoting the search for ways humans and the earth can flourish together. Recent research focuses on sustainable development emphases in civic education worldwide, the rise of large-scale disaster planning, and rhetoric around corporate responsibility in nonprofits and firms. Tricia teaches about nonprofit organizations and international and comparative education.