Michael Brown is senior advisor and co-founder of City Year, an education nonprofit that mobilizes idealistic young people for a year of service in systemically under-resourced schools and promotes the concept of voluntary national service as means of building a stronger democracy. Michael led City Year for 30 years, including 13 as CEO.

This year, 3,000 City Year AmeriCorps members are serving as student success coaches in 350 schools in 29 U.S. cities, helping to increase the nation’s high school graduate rate. City Year also has affiliates in South Africa and the United Kingdom.

City Year served as an inspiration for AmeriCorps, the federal initiative through which more than one million Americans have served their country. City Year has 32,000 alumni who have contributed more than 54 million hours of service and earned access to more than $150 million in college scholarships through the AmeriCorps National Service Trust.