StartingBloc is a national social enterprise dedicated to recruiting, training, placing, and supporting a generation of young leaders and entrepreneurs that redefine enterprise as a force for creating both profit and positive social change. StartingBloc’s mission is accomplished through its flagship program, the StartingBloc Fellowship. This year, StartingBloc will select ~250 young leaders (18-25 years of age) to become StartingBloc Fellows. As such, they will attend a training series on social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility at StartingBloc’s partner graduate schools which include MIT Sloan, The Fletcher School, Wharton, London Business School, the Yale School of Management, Duke – Fuqua School of Business, and NYU Wagner. Following the training program, these young leaders will continue into socially significant careers at StartingBloc’s partner organizations in all three sectors.
Trabian Shorters, Co-Director of Ashoka’a US Program commented,
“StartingBloc has created a rare model for engaging and training the next generation of young leaders. By placing and supporting them in outstanding private sector and citizen sector organizations such as Ashoka, they are incubating a promising next generation of social change.”
With the help of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, StartingBloc will scale the StartingBloc Fellowship program to graduate over ~1000 young leaders each year.
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a global organization, identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs – extraordinary individuals with unprecedented ideas for change in their communities – supporting the individual, idea and institution through all phases of their career. Ashoka’s mission is to develop the profession of social entrepreneurship around the world and to shape a citizen sector that is entrepreneurial, productive and globally integrated. There are more than 1,700 Fellows in 60 countries implementing innovative ideas for change in their communities, countries and continents. Ashoka does not accept government funding; business entrepreneurs, corporations, individuals, foundations and volunteer chapters finance Ashoka’s work.
StartingBloc and Ashoka envision many of StartingBloc’s alumni continuing on to drive social change as Ashoka Fellows later in their careers.
