Changemaker Interview

Dana Mortenson is Co-Founder and CEO of World Savvy, a national education nonprofit committed to “building inclusive, adaptive and future-ready education systems” for over 18 years. World Savvy’s overarching goal is to integrate “cultural and global competence into the ethos and foundations of what we define as quality education.” I can draw a direct line from my first association with World Savvy as a participant in their Global Competence Certificate Program to the work I’m […]

You’ll likely be surprised, as I was, to learn the number of homeless youth present in a community like Montgomery County, Virginia. Two thriving universities welcome students and faculty from all over the world into small towns that sit comfortably among the Appalachian Mountains in an almost idyllic environment. In this setting, homeless and unaccompanied youth are almost “invisible” to most of us.  Dr. Wendy Eckenrod makes us aware of the reality and shares her

Today’s Changemaker conversation features Nicole Mignone who can count attorney, photographer and coach among her many specialties.  Please tune in here via video, podcast and/or print to learn how she nurtures her own changemaker light and the lights in those around her. Nicole says that it can be complicated to explain what she does because she’s a bit of a “Jane of all trades.”  Among other things, she’s been a yoga instructor, an English as

Urbandictionary.com defines the term “solutionary” this way: Someone who finds revolutionary answers to life problems. A problem solver, an inventive activist. A type of revolutionary who makes change by providing a better way to do things.  In this second portion of my changemaker conversation with Penny Franklin, she shares how she started to push for new solutions to old problems when her children started facing the same kinds of barriers to school success that faced her in

This is the final episode of four from my conversation with Changemaker Penny Franklin.  You’ll want to be sure you caught the first three parts where she talks about her work with people across differences to create homegrown solutions to racial injustices in her community.  In this last piece, you will hear Penny talk about the “ripple effects” of this work that are starting to radiate outward to communities beyond Montgomery County, Virginia. She also

This is Part 3 of a four-part series centering on Penny Franklin’s Changemaker Journey.  In this portion of our conversation, Penny focuses on the “Patchwork” quadrant of our Changemaker Framework that emphasizes the beauty and importance, as well as the challenges, of working across cultures and human diversity to address the issues we must face together. https://vimeo.com/397470880 As she ponders the patchwork in the Changemaker Journey, Penny begins by reflecting on recollections from her childhood.

This is Part I of a four-part series from my Changemaker Interview with community leader and activist Penny Franklin.  Though she doesn’t really like to be called a “leader”, she has clearly led her community in some very important initiatives to address racial injustice.  This first part of the series centers on quadrant 1 of the “Homegrown Solutions for a Patchwork World” framework.  You will learn about Penny’s early life and motivations for change.  Please

I’ve had the honor of working with Brad Bizzell for over twenty years.  We were principal colleagues together in Montgomery County, Virginia and later worked together in the Educational Leadership Program at Radford University preparing school leaders. I was grateful for this opportunity to sit down and learn about his Changemaker Journey using the “Homegrown Solutions for a Patchwork World” framework as our guide.   I continue to learn so much from him about how to

Blacksburg, Virginia’s Chief of Police, Anthony Wilson, joined me to share his changemaker journey using our four-part framework “Homegrown Solutions for a Patchwork World”.  You can view the inspiring 25-minute conversation below and read on to learn how this community leader, who was first on the scene as a SWAT team officer during the horrific 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, has worked to create triumph out of tragedy.  We won’t dwell on that incident here, but

It was clear to me really from the time I was three in the arms of a brown woman … if I have an image of mother Mary, the mother of God, I always talk about Sarah Cunningham …She embodied that great maternal God love.  Leaf Seligman refers to herself as a “translator of metaphors”. The descriptor speaks to her unique gifts as restorative practitioner, teacher, preacher, and author finding words that bring understanding to