Aspen Institute

A program of the Aspen Institute, which is a Washington, DC-based educational and policy studies organization, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) is a global membership network of more than 290 organizations operating in more than 150 countries that provide critical financial, educational, and business support services to small and growing businesses to propel entrepreneurship in emerging markets. ANDE’s core work focuses on building thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems and local institutional capacity in emerging market regions by breaking down barriers to entrepreneurial growth and educating a diverse set of actors about ways they can create efficiencies to accelerate enterprise growth. Its members support more than one million small business entrepreneurs annually. The Foundation’s grant supports ANDE’s core operational activities across its focus areas of advocacy and education; knowledge sharing and awareness; funding resource creation; metrics and evaluation; research and training and talent development.

The Aspen Institute is a nonpartisan forum for values-based leadership and the exchange of ideas. This grant supports a congressional conference titled “Finding a Diplomatic Solution to the North Korean Crisis.”

The mission of the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions is to support community collaboration, including collective impact, that enables communities to effectively address their most pressing challenges. With support from the Foundation, the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions — in collaboration with the Schultz Family Foundation and Starbucks — launched the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative in July 2015. The 100,000 Opportunities Initiative established the nation's largest employer-led, private sector coalition committed to creating pathways to employment for youth who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market. The Aspen Forum serves as the intermediary for the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative and provides direct leadership, technical assistance, and program support for its implementation. This award supports the newly established Pathways to Careers Fund, which enables the Aspen Forum to invest in five Demonstration Cities across the country. The Pathways to Careers Fund seeks to create new knowledge and advance the field's ability to serve opportunity youth.

Based in Washington, D.C., the Aspen Institute (Aspen) is an educational and policy studies organization that seeks to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues of the day. Its Communications and Society Program focuses on analysis, consensus building, and problem solving in the areas of communications, media, and information policy. In 2012, the Foundation made an initial grant to Aspen to create a task force to explore, study, and identify a set of recommendations for advancing the use of the Internet for learning and innovation, while also ensuring the privacy of individual data and the safety of children and youth. The task force issued recommendations in a final report in May 2014, which included actions for fostering trusted online learning environments. This grant builds on past activities of the task force to develop a privacy guide for schools and local communities to implement trusted Connected Learning environments that comply with current privacy policies governing student educational data. At a time when there is apprehension about technology in the classroom and the use of data to customize learning, this privacy guide will provide practical advice to those wishing to innovate with the tools of the digital age to better meet the needs of today’s youth. 

The mission of the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions is to support community collaboration, including collective impact, that enables communities to address effectively their most pressing challenges. The new I 00, 000 Opportunities Initiative, launched by the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions (AFCS) in collaboration with the Schultz Family Foundation and Starbucks, establishes the nation's largest employer-led, private sector coalition committed to creating pathways to employment for youth who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market. AFCS serves as the intermediary for this initiative and provides direct leadership, technical assistance, and program support for its launch and implementation. This grant will enable AFCS to manage a national network of employers and service providers to develop accelerated employment pathway prototypes and to share lessons learned from these efforts for large-scale impact, both locally and nationally.

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC that works to foster leadership based on enduring values, and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical social issues. The annual Aspen Ideas Festival, managed by the Aspen Institute in partnership with The Atlantic magazine, is a public event that enables global leaders in many disciplines to present and discuss ideas and issues that shape individual and public life. This award will support the Ideas Festival, which is hosting two panel discussions with MacArthur staff and grantees, one concerning criminal justice and mass incarceration, the other concerning data and ethics.

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization that seeks to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues of the day. In 2012, the Foundation funded the Institute to create a task force, the Aspen Task Force on Learning and the Internet, chaired by Jeb Bush and Rosario Dawson, established to explore, study, and identify a set of recommendations for advancing the use of the Internet for learning and innovation while also ensuring the privacy of individual data and the safety of children and youth. This grant supports the continued dissemination of the Task Force’s recommendations.

The Franklin Project intends to create a system that supports one million civilian national service opportunities every year for 18-28 year olds with a mixture of public and private funds. Community service helps young adults get valuable job experience, learn to work across race, class and geographic lines, and prepare them more fully for education or careers. It can be particularly valuable for veterans in their transition from military to civilian life. Volunteers conduct work valuable to their communities, including early childhood education, maintaining public lands and waterways, building housing and parks, and assisting the elderly.

The Inclusive America Project is part of the Aspen Institute’s Justice and Society Program. It addresses societal challenges related to religious conflicts by promoting religious pluralism, freedom of worship, and honoring the rights of others. Acting through a panel co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Harvard Kennedy School Professor David Gergen, the Project will seek to ensure greater respect in the public sphere for the identities of religious communities, foster more positive relationships between people of different faiths, and create partnerships among disparate organizations in service to the common good.

This grant will allow the Aspen Institute’s Global Health and Development Program to serve as Secretariat to the Global Health Worker Advisory Council, an independent authority. The objective of the Council and Secretariat is to maintain momentum for the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel by promoting the Code and helping countries to implement it in their national laws, policies, and programs. The Council and Secretariat’s activities will include high-level advocacy, implementation of an annual Innovation Award, and participation in global fora such as the UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development and the Global Forum on Migration and Development.

Based in Washington, D.C., the Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization that seeks to provide a non-partisan venue for dealing with critical issues of the day. Its Communications and Society Program will use this grant to establish and manage a task force to explore policy issues that best support learning and innovation. The task force will bring together leading thinkers from around the country, with a broad range of expertise and views, to analyze and assess current Internet policy from the perspective of learning.

In support of the US-China Legal Experts Dialogue.

In support of the Business and Society Program's Finance Roundtable.

To promote effective implementation of the World Health Organization's Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (over two years).

In support of the Congressional Program (over three years).

In support of a conference examining the future of China's foreign and security policy and East Asian security.

In support of The Community Development Finance Scale and Sustainability Project.

For research on community development finance.

In support of a series of seminars for key members of Congress from both parties on issues related to the September 11 attacks

To support networking and public education activities related to U.S. foreign policy and international security (over two years).

To support the Global Interdependence Initiative (over two years).

To support networking and public education activities related to U.S. foreign policy and international security (over two years).

To support the Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives for Children and Families.

To support a public education campaign about the International Conference on Population and Development.

To support the Roundtable on Initiatives for Children, Families, and Communities (over two years).

To support the Enterprise Development Study.

To support the project Communist East Europe: Building a Congressional Core Group.

To support a re-examination of programs related to the changing issues faced by corporate leaders and the new skills needed as commercial institutions change and develop.

To support Waldemar A. Nielsen's revision of his "The Big Foundations" (1972).

To support Waldemar A. Nielsen's revision of his "The Big Foundations" (1972).