Maria Vertkin: Careers Found in Translation
An immigrant launches a nonprofit that trains low-income, bilingual women to become medical interpreters, helping patients who don’t speak English communicate with doctors.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Veronika Scott: How a Coat Becomes a Bed
An art-school project blossoms into a design shop geared toward serving the homeless by producing a winter coat that turns into a sleeping bag.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Alejandro Gac-Artigas: Reversing Children’s Summer Slump
Sringboard Collaborative’s five-week summer reading programs for kids are showing impressive results in Philadelphia and Oakland by including sessions with parents.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Michael Brennan: Tech Expert Takes on Social Ills
The program officer at the Ford Foundation puts his Ph.D. in computer science to work as he explores the impact of technology on society.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Donnel Baird: Clean Energy in Old Buildings
Where banks look the other way, his BlocPower effort gets creative to attract environmentally minded investors to help nonprofits cut their energy budgets.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Ommeed Sathe: Facelift for a Midsize City
Prudential Financial is working revitalize Newark’s downtown, among other areas, and it has found someone committed to figuring out what works best for each community.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Vu Le: Speaking Truth to Power — Humorously
A blogger uses startling honesty and whip-smart humor to say things many nonprofit workers wish they could say.
Jason Cone: Reluctant Frontman
When a military airstrike hit a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, a former journalist who worked for the group stepped in front of the TV cameras and turned up the heat on the U.S. government.
By Drew Lindsay
Senior Editor, Special Projects
3 Women and a Hashtag: Birth of a Movement
Thanks to Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, Black Lives Matter became much more than a media slogan; it’s an organizing mantra, a principle, and vision for change that ignited an impressive wave of activism among young people.
Max Kenner: Prison Path to Higher Learning
A fervent believer in the power of the humanities and sciences to transform lives creates a rigorous academic program through which inmates can earn associate and bachelor’s degrees.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Rev. Starsky Wilson: Ministering to the City
Equally at home navigating the halls of power and standing arm-in-arm with protesters, he is an influential voice for justice in St. Louis.
By Rebecca Koenig
Contributor
She’s addressing the causes of climate change by placing AmeriCorps members with local governments throughout California to work on energy projects.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Brandon Dennison: Hope on the Homefront
While volunteering in college, he got angry seeing people in coal country who werer eager, even desperate, for employment. Then he found a way to relate to them — and put them back to work.
By Alex Daniels
Senior Editor, Foundations
Jake Wood: Deploying Veterans for a New Mission
The deadly earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010 prompted a former U.S. Marine to rally fellow veterans to provide supplies and medical help. Thus was born the disaster-relief nonprofit Team Rubicon.
By Megan O’Neil
Contributor
Marisa Renee Lee: ‘Rabble-Rouser’ for Obama
The managing director of My Brother’s Keeper Alliance helped create a free-standing nonprofit based on White House efforts to improve the lives of minority boys and young men.
By Alex Daniels
Senior Editor, Foundations
Andrew Youn: Farm Aid With an M.B.A.
His business degree at Northwestern and experience as a management consultant have helped him teach hundreds of thousands of farmers in East Africa to improve their productivity.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor