Saving the World One Child at a Time
In his more than 20 years with Harlem Children’s Zone, Geoffrey Canada has become nationally recognized for his pioneering work helping children and families in New York City and as a passionate advocate for disadvantaged families, struggling communities, and education reform. But, as members of the Alliance are very aware, the challenges these families face are not confined to one city or one area of the country; they exist everywhere in both urban and rural communities.
In his presentation, Canada shares models for reform that combine educational, social and medical services and that begin at birth and follow children to college. He will discuss the trend toward service integration and the impact his suggested models for reform have on child welfare.
Canada will review efforts to replicate aspects of Harlem Children’s Zone, specifically through the Promise Neighborhoods initiative.
Canada believes the answers to the issues that compromise children and families are not to be found in any one strategy. Instead, individuals, families, schools, and communities must develop a comprehensive plan of action to save all children.
Geoffrey Canada, president and chief executive officer, Harlem Children’s Zone
Biography:
In his 20-plus years with Harlem Children's Zone, Inc., Geoffrey Canada has become nationally recognized for his pioneering work helping children and families in Harlem, and as a passionate advocate for education reform.
Since 1990, Canada has been the president and CEO at Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ,) which The New York Times Magazine called “one of the most ambitious social experiments of our time.” In October 2005, Canada was named one of “America's Best Leaders” by U.S. News and World Report.
In 1997 the Harlem Children’s Zone Project was launched. It targets a specific geographic area in Central Harlem with a comprehensive range of services. The Zone Project today covers 100 blocks and aims to serve more than 10,000 children by 2011.
The work of Canada and HCZ has become a national model and has been the subject of many profiles in the media. Their work has been featured on “60 Minutes,” “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Nightline,” “CBS This Morning,” “The Charlie Rose Show,” National Public Radio's “On Point,” as well in articles in The New York Times, The New York Daily News, USA Today. and Newsday.
Canada grew up in the South Bronx in a poor, sometimes-violent neighborhood. Despite his troubled surroundings, he was able to succeed academically, receiving a bachelor of arts degree from Bowdoin College and a master’s degree in education from the Harvard University School of Education. After graduating from Harvard, Canada decided to work to help children who, like himself, were disadvantaged.
Drawing upon his own childhood experiences and at the Harlem Children's Zone, he wrote Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America, and Reaching Up for Manhood: Transforming the Lives of Boys in America.
For his years of work advocating for children and families in some of America’s most devastated communities, Canada was a recipient of the first Heinz Award in 1994. In 2004, he was given the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education and Child Magazine’s Children’s Champion Award.
Canada has also received the Heroes of the Year Award from the Robin Hood Foundation, the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the Spirit of the City Award from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Brennan Legacy Award from New York University, and the Common Good Award from Bowdoin College.
He has received honorary degrees from Harvard University, Bowdoin College, Williams College, John Jay College, Bank Street College, and Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary.
A third-degree black belt, Canada is also the founder (in 1983) of the Chang Moo Kwan Martial Arts School. Despite his busy schedule as head of HCZ, he continues to teach the principles of Tae Kwon Do to community youth along with anti-violence and conflict-resolution techniques.
In 2006, Canada was selected by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as co-chair of The Commission on Economic Opportunity, which was asked to formulate a plan to significantly reduce poverty. In 2007, he was appointed co-chair of New York State Governor’s Children's Cabinet Advisory Board.
Canada joined Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc. (then called the Rheedlen Foundation) in 1983 as education director. Prior to that, he worked as director of the Robert White School, a private day school for troubled inner-city youth in Boston. The National Book Award-winning author Jonathan Kozol has called Canada, “One of the few authentic heroes of New York and one of the best friends children have, or ever will have, in our nation.”
Special closing keynote only rate $50
Geoffrey Canada is featured in and American Express commercial currently playing on television. Video below.
John McGivern's Milwaukee: Welcome to It
John McGivern’s stories hilariously discuss growing up in a large, Irish-Catholic family on the east side of Milwaukee. As he shares details on his childhood with his brothers, sisters, parents, and grandparents, McGivern paints pictures of a neighborhood that will look and feel very familiar. Through his comedic tales, he ties our lives together with the thread of universal, human experience.
John McGivern, comedian, writer, and actor
Biography:
John is the author and star of many personally-written one-man shows and has received critical acclaim in many areas of the country. His first show, “Midwest Side Story,” opened to rave reviews at the Baliwick Theater in Chicago. He has won numerous awards for this show, including the 1994 John W. Schmid Award for “Best Writer of a New Work” and the “After Dark Award” for outstanding performance by an actor. McGivern’s shows have sold out in many cities, including his hometown of Milwaukee.
Through the years, his shows have taken on slightly different names including “More Midwest Side Stories,” “John McGivern Live,” “One of the Boys, Late Night with John McGivern,” “That John McGivern Thing,” “An Evening with John McGivern,” and “Midsummer Night McGivern.”
These monologues are based on his real life experiences as one of six children in an Irish-Catholic, working-class family in Milwaukee. His stories about family and friends are told with sincerity, compassion, and humor. His topics include parents, nuns, school, and being the one who could never throw a ball!
McGivern has appeared in numerous stage productions. He is probably best known for his role of Tony Whitcomb in the long-running comedy hit, “Shear Madness.” playing the role in Chicago, Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., Tampa, St. Paul, and San Francisco. He was also a part of the Studio Theater’s Helen Hayes-award-winning- production of “March of the Falsettos” as Mendel. McGivern was also seen in “A Lawyer, a Priest and an Atheist Walk into a Bar” at The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
More information on McGivern is available on his website: johnmcgivern.com.
Guiding Social Change with Constant Vigilance, Innovation, and Challenges to the Prevailing Wisdom
Social change can arise from many directions. At a minimum, social change involves at least four pillars of impact embodied by high performing nonprofits: social entrepreneurship, social conservatorship, social exploration, and social activism. Light will discuss the past and future roles of nonprofit human service organizations as social change agents.
As witnessed in the centennial celebration preceding this presentation, social change comes from constant vigilance, a persistent commitment to innovation, and challenges to the prevailing wisdom. Today’s nonprofit human service providers have never had a more important job. They must simultaneously protect past achievements, mend tears in the social fabric, expand what works, and generate innovative means for both advancing past achievements and launching new ones.
Light’s presentation will also provide key insight into how organizations can continue to be high-performing, robust, and impactful, so that they may protect and expand upon previous achievements and prevent the return of problems once thought solved. Light will share tactics for how human service organizations can develop the ability to not just hedge against economic challenges, but actually shape the future by using “down” times as opportunities for innovation.
Paul C. Light, Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Services, Wagner School of Public Service, New York University
Biography:
Paul C. Light has worked in all four sectors—education, nonprofit, government, and business—and is today the Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.
He has taught at the University of Virginia, George Washington University, Georgetown University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Minnesota, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
In addition, Light served from 1998-2005 as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before joining Brookings, he was director of the public policy program at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia from 1995-1998, where he was responsible for designing and overseeing an entirely new funding stream for renewing civic life in the United States.
He accepted a fellowship at the American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship in 1982-1983, serving as a legislative aide on Social Security and tax reform with the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Barber B. Conable, Jr. (R-NY). He returned to Capitol Hill in 1987 as a senior staffer with Senator John Glenn’s Governmental Affairs Committee where he was responsible for legislation on all aspects of executive branch administration, including presidential transitions, budget reform, outsourcing, and performance management.
He has also served as director of studies at the National Academy of Public Administration (the sister of the National Academy of Sciences). While there, Light was responsible for a research program that included studies of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, toxic waste regulation at the Environmental Protection Agency, welfare reform in Florida, and reducing the risk of nuclear war.
Light has written 20 books. He has written extensively in the field of nonprofit management, with three books over the past five years: Making Nonprofits Work, Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence, and most recently, Sustaining Nonprofit Performance. Light’s most recent book is The Four Pillars of High Performance.
Two of his books, Thickening Government and The Tides of Reform, have won the National Academy of Public Administration’s Louis Brownlow award for the best book published in public administration each year.
Light is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 1994. He is also frequent commentator on NPR's “Morning Edition,” and a familiar face on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, and C-SPAN. He has testified before Congress 15 times in recent history on issues ranging from the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security to federal ethics reform.
