The Leadership & Sustainability Institute featuring
Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink
Shawn Dove, Open Society Foundations
Andrew Wolk, Root Cause
Bio
Shawn Dove
Shawn Dove joined the Open Society Foundations US Programs staff in May 2008 to launch and lead the Campaign for Black Male Achievement, a national philanthropic initiative that builds on OSF’s existing grantmaking strategies to improve the life outcomes of black men and boys in the areas of education, work and family. Dove has over two decades of leadership experience as a youth development professional, community-builder and advocate for children and families, designing and leading initiatives locally and nationally. He began his professional career in the field at the age of 24 when he was appointed to the position of Executive Director of The DOME Project, a NYC-based youth development organization he joined as a youth participant at the age of 13.
Before joining OSF, Dove served as Director of Youth Ministries for First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, NJ, where he was responsible for the management of the 7,000-member institution’s youth development strategies, strategic partnerships and cross-ministry collaborations. Dove has also served as the New York Vice President for MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership between 2003 and 2006, where he was responsible for the leadership and management of The Mentoring Partnership of New York (MPNY), the flagship local affiliate of MENTOR. During his tenure he doubled the organization’s membership of mentoring programs and created The Male Mentoring Project, a city-wide public awareness and recruitment strategy responding to the need for more African American and Latino male mentors for New York City's boys and young men.
Dove holds an undergraduate degree in English from Wesleyan University. He is a graduate of Columbia University Business School's Institute for Not-for-Profit Management and a 1994 recipient of the Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University. He has earned numerous awards for his service to youth, families and communities and currently lives in New Jersey with his wonderful wife and four amazing children.
Angela Glover Blackwell
Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, founded PolicyLink in 1999 and continues to drive its mission of advancing
economic and social equity. Under Blackwell’s leadership, PolicyLink has become a leading voice in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, education, and infrastructure.
Prior to founding PolicyLink, Blackwell served as Senior Vice President at the Rockefeller Foundation, where she oversaw the foundation’s Domestic and Cultural divisions. A lawyer by training, she gained national recognition as founder of the Oakland (CA) Urban Strategies Council, where she pioneered new approaches to neighborhood revitalization. From 1977 to 1987, Blackwell was a partner at Public Advocates, a nationally known public interest law firm. As a leading voice in the movement for equity in America, Blackwell is a frequent commentator for some of the nation’s top news organizations, including the Washington Post, Salon, and the Hufngton Post, and has appeared regularly on such shows as public radio’s "Marketplace," "The Ta- vis Smiley Show," "Nightline," and PBS’s "Now." Angela was recently a guest on the PBS series "Moyers & Company" and Current TV’s "The War Room with Jennifer Granholme."
Blackwell is the co-author of the recently published Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (W.W. Norton & Co., 2010), and contributed to Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream (The
New Press, 2007) and The Covenant with Black America (Third World Press, 2006). Blackwell earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University, and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. She serves on numerous boards and served as co-chair of the task force on poverty for the Center for American Progress. Blackwell currently serves on The President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Andrew Wolk
Widely recognized as a leading social innovator and a pioneering teacher of social entrepreneurship, Andrew founded Root Cause in 2004 and continues to lead its overall strategic direction, having consulted to dozens of nonprofit organizations in their quest to achieve enduring social impact Andrew authored a chapter in the Small Business Administration’s annual report to the president of the United States, entitled "Social Entrepreneurship and Government: A New Breed of Entrepreneurs Developing Solutions to Social Problems," a white paper co-published with the Aspen Institute, entitled "Advancing Social Entrepreneurship: Recommendations for Policy Makers and Government Agencies," and the Root Cause How-to Guides Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact and Building a Performance Measurement System.
Andrew designed and taught one of the first courses on social entrepreneurship in the country. He is a senior lecturer in social entrepreneurship at MIT and is a Gleitsman Visiting Practitioner at Harvard Kennedy School, where he is currently teaching a course on new public leadership and the role of government. He has served on the board
of Social Enterprise Alliance and the advisory board of the Social Capitalist Awards, and helped establish the Boston chapter of Social Venture Partners. Andrew holds an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Management from Boston University and a B.A. from Lehigh University.
Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, describes the true infrastructure required to sustain a movement. Starting with the anchor of information, Blackwell reminds the audience of the importance of the scaffolding of community and the motor of a unifying narrative.
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