Leading the Way

Maya Ajmera, 31

In 1993 founded the Global Fund for Children (http://www.shakti.org), in Durham, N.C. It runs a program called Shakti for Children (after the Hindi word for empowerment) that produces children’s books about cultural diversity. Royalties from the books go into a fund run by the group that makes grants to children’s causes around the world.

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How the Next Generation Is Shaping the Non-Profit World: Profiles on 10 Young Leaders

Ms. Ajmera, who has a public-policy degree from Duke University, searched fruitlessly for months for a publisher for her group’s first book, Children from Australia to Zimbabwe, before deciding that the charity would publish it itself. Today, the Global Fund for Children has a partnership with Charlesbridge Publishing Company, in Boston, to publish its future books; has made its first grants to charities in India, Kenya, and other countries; and has plans to open an office in Washington, D.C.

Kim Alexander, 33

In 1994, she took over the inactive California Voter Foundation, started by Secretary of State Fong Eu in 1989, and has since brought it to life.

The California Voter Foundation is a non-partisan organization that uses the Internet to educate voters through its Web site (http://www.calvoter.org) and through e-mail messages.

It also works to make government documents more readily available through the use of new technologies. The charity’s Digital Sunlight Web site (http://www.digitalsunlight.org) provides background information and resources to foster such efforts in California and across the country.

Today, the organization has a $300,000 budget, and Ms. Alexander has started a new membership drive.

While several philanthropy leaders say organizations like this are the way of the future, Ms. Alexander says, “I thought there would be more organizations like C.V.F. by now.”

Amber Coffman, 16

Created Happy Helpers for the Homeless, which she runs out of the apartment she shares with her mother in Glen Burnie, Md. Ms. Coffman started the group in 1993, when she was 10 years old.

Every week, Ms. Coffman and various other “helpers” from a pool of about 50 kids get together to make sandwiches that feed about 600 homeless people. Other branches of Happy Helpers have sprouted in California, Florida, and Virginia, and she has received inquiries from people in 44 states, Guam, and Canada who are interested in starting similar groups.

Ms. Coffman was selected as the only teen-ager to serve as spokeswoman for America’s Promise, a group headed by Gen. Colin Powell that seeks to help young people.

Rob Dixon, 28

Founded the Colorado EMS Foundation in Denver in 1996 to improve emergency medical services in the state. His boyhood dream was to be a firefighter, so at age 16, Mr. Dixon joined the volunteer fire department in Monument, Colo., and went on to become a paramedic. While doing that work, he noticed that many emergency-service organizations lacked the money to buy equipment that could save lives.

The foundation has provided emergency-medical-service training to individuals and donated millions of dollars’ worth of satellite-communications equipment, high-technology imaging systems, ambulances, defibrillators, and other items to fire departments, search-and-rescue organizations, and police departments throughout the state.

Jonathan Ellenbogen, 32, and Douglas Sloane, 26

Founded and head the Southeast Forest Project, in Washington, D.C., which conducts forest-preservation advocacy efforts.

Mr. Ellenbogen and Mr. Sloane, who formerly worked together at the National Forest Protection Campaign, realized that while a lot of attention was being paid to logging in the Northwest, very little attention was being paid to the spread of chip mills in the Southeast. Over the past decade, they estimate, about 100 new chip mills have opened in the region, and thousands of acres of trees have been cut down. “We decided that we needed to organize a group in the Southeast to fight this new threat,” says Mr. Ellenbogen.

The two young leaders have made some notable progress and won praise from environmental peers. As a result of their efforts, for example, the Department of Interior has begun a study on the impact of chip mills in the region and imposed a temporary moratorium on the opening of any new mills.

Katya Fels, 27

Founded and runs On the Rise, a charity that works with homeless women whose lives have been shattered by poverty and abuse and who are not receiving adequate help from homeless shelters or other social-service groups.

Ms. Fels, a 1993 graduate of Harvard University, started the group in Cambridge, Mass., in 1995. So far, On the Rise has helped 300 women.

On the Rise, which runs a day center where the women can come to shower, sleep, chat, or be by themselves, does not impose traditional rules, such as a curfew or a sobriety requirement. No appointments are necessary. The group’s four employees, including Ms. Fels, seek women out on the street and start building relationships by talking and listening to them.

This year, the charity plans to start a long-term transitional-housing program, as well as a revolving loan program for women who need help building up a credit history.

Mark Gold, 35

Executive director of Heal the Bay (http://www.healthebay.org), in Santa Monica, Cal. Under his leadership, the group is credited with helping to persuade government officials to prohibit the dumping of sludge into Santa Monica Bay and to invest billions of dollars in upgrading the city’s sewer system.

Mr. Gold, who studied environmental science and engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles, has won praise for his ability to combine scientific knowledge with environmental passion. Last month, the City of Los Angeles passed a resolution to officially thank Mr. Gold for his leadership in cleaning up Santa Monica Bay.

Ted Halstead, 30

Founded and for several years ran Redefining Progress, an environmental public-policy group in San Francisco. While with that organization he published articles in Atlantic Monthly, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere on topics that included calling for a new pollution tax and for an economic indicator that could serve as an alternative to gross domestic product.

Today, Mr. Halstead serves as founding president of the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank that announced its start this month. The organization has two main goals: “to train and support the next generation of public intellectuals” and “to build a new set of political ideas based on innovative and pragmatic solutions to our nation’s most pressing problems.”

Already, the New America Foundation has raised $1.5-million.

Darrell Hammond, 27

Co-founder of Kaboom (http://www.kaboom.org), a Washington, D.C., charity that builds and renovates playgrounds across the country. Having grown up in a foster home run by an Illinois charity, Mr. Hammond says he learned two lessons: how much children long for carefree play time and how crucial the charity of strangers can be.

Founded jointly by Mr. Hammond and Dawn Hutchison in 1996, Kaboom has coordinated the construction of more than 100 clean and safe playgrounds. During the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, the charity set a goal of building or renovating 1,000 playgrounds by the end of 2000. With the help of corporate sponsors, who have helped push its annual budget to $4-million, it expects to reach its goal.

Julie Book Kennedy, 27

Founded and runs D.C. Scores, an after-school program in Washington public schools that teaches kids how to play soccer and helps them develop their writing skills.

Ms. Kennedy, a 1993 graduate of Georgetown University, had been teaching in Washington’s public schools for just a year when she started a girls’ soccer league to give her young students something constructive to do after school. Now, 500 boys and girls at 16 elementary schools in the city compete in the league. Ms. Kennedy has added a writing workshop to the program, and she has given up her teaching post to focus on the charity.

D.C. Scores, which has received support from local grant makers, corporations, and the U.S. Soccer Federation, is expanding to other parts of the country. Later this year, it will kick off New England Scores in Boston.

Sam Mistrano, 30

Founded the Human Services Network of Los Angeles, which works to insure that people affected by changes in welfare laws receive the help they need.

The group acts in part as a catalyst, enlisting other organizations to participate in headline-grabbing events aimed at bringing the plight of the poor to the attention of legislators and the public. For example, in 1997 the charity chartered an airplane and flew 250 welfare recipients from Los Angeles County to Sacramento to present their ideas on reform to the state Legislature.

Mr. Mistrano and his staff also have worked behind the scenes, commissioning reports to determine the effects of welfare changes on county residents and arranging for leaders of social-services charities to participate in policy-making meetings.

The charity has helped score some successes: State and county officials decided to extend the amount of time welfare recipients can receive aid and to reinstate some services for legal immigrants.

Brian Schatz, 26

Founded Youth for Environmental Services, in Honolulu, to get young people involved in environmental organizations. The charity (http://yes1.org) recruits volunteers from kindergarten through 12th grade to plant trees, clean beaches, and paint environmental messages on storm drains.

The charity got off to a modest start but very quickly grew way beyond Mr. Schatz’s expectations. Within four years, the organization had expanded to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Maui, with a total of seven staff members. So far, they have recruited 28,500 students to volunteer for dozens of charities. In addition, the group goes into the schools and teaches children about the environment.

Two months ago, Mr. Schatz stepped down from his job as director of the charity to became a Hawaii state representative. He serves as chairman of the organization’s board.

Julie A. Su, 29

Fresh out of Harvard Law School, Ms. Su, a staff lawyer at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, took the lead in representing 72 Thai garment workers who for years had been held captive in a factory outside the city and forced to toil against their will. Her efforts helped send seven sweatshop operators to jail.

She is also co-founder of Sweatshop Watch, a charity that defends the rights of immigrant workers.

In 1996, Ms. Su met with President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House to discuss human-rights abuses in the United States. She also won a 1996 Reebok International Human Rights Award.

Alexie Torres-Fleming, 34

Founded Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice four years ago in the poor Bronx, N.Y., neighborhood where she grew up. Since then, 500 youths ages 6 to 21 have joined the organization and taken part in arts classes, literacy programs, and discussion groups that focus on topics such as sexuality, health, stress, and school.

They have also learned to become community activists and have already left their imprint on the neighborhood. For example, the group helped develop a community garden out of a vacant lot and persuade the city’s Department of Employment to reinstate 700 summer youth jobs that had been eliminated.

For her dedication and compassion, Ms. Torres-Fleming was awarded a $50,000 Union Square Award by the Fund for the City of New York in 1998.

Zarni, 35

A former Burmese English teacher, he founded and runs the Free Burma Coalition, in Washington.

The coalition, which is applying for charity status from the Internal Revenue Service, coordinates the work of groups around the world that are pushing for democracy in Burma. Its mission is to build a grassroots movement inspired by and modeled after the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

Zarni left Burma in 1988 in the midst of a pro-democracy uprising, and has never been back. He says that his activist work caused him to be “blacklisted” and that he has had to cut off all contact with his family and friends in Burma.

Much of the coalition’s organizing is done on university campuses and via the organization’s Internet site (http://www.freeburmacoalition.org).

Zarni helped lead a 100-campus boycott against PepsiCo, and in 1997 the company withdrew all of its brands and business from Burma.

— Compiled by Marilyn Dickey, Marina Dundjerski, Susan Gray, Domenica Marchetti, and Jennifer Moore