John Bridgeland, President & CEO, Civic Enterprises
Franklin Project Co-Chair
John Bridgeland is President & CEO of Civic Enterprises, a public policy development firm. His work on the high school dropout crisis helped bring national attention to the issue, with the TIME cover story “Dropout Nation” and two Oprah Winfrey shows prompted by his report, The Silent Epidemic. Bridgeland is also Vice Chairman of Malaria No More, a non-profit launched at the White House Summit on Malaria that is bringing new resources, advocacy and grassroots support to ending malaria in Africa by 2015. Bridgeland helped develop the Centennial Initiative and Challenge to strengthen our 391 national parks and serves on the National Parks System Advisory Board. He also was a leader in ServiceNation, a presidential forum with Senators Barack Obama and John McCain and a summit that showcased a 10-point plan to increase community, national and international service opportunities, which informed the Serve America Act by Senators Edward Kennedy and Orrin Hatch. The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act was signed into law in 2009. For his work in promoting the national service agenda, Bridgeland was selected as a 2008 NonProfit Times Executive of the Year.

Alan Khazei, Founder and CEO, The Action Tank, LLC
Franklin Project Co-Chair
Alan Khazei is a social entrepreneur who has pioneered ways for citizens to make a difference in addressing our nation’s pressing challenges.  He is most recently the Founder and CEO of The Action Tank, a strategic consulting firm in greater Boston, MA.  Alan is the Co-Founder of City Year, a national service corps that unites young adults from all backgrounds for an intensive year of full-time service to help students stay on track to graduation.  City Year inspired the creation of AmeriCorps under President Clinton, and has grown to twenty-four cities in America as well as to Johannesburg and London.  Alan was a leading organizer of the “Save AmeriCorps” coalition in 2003, which restored and ultimately expanded funding for AmeriCorps.  He is the founder of Be The Change, Inc., a nonprofit that creates national issue based campaigns by mobilizing bi-partisan coalitions.  Be The Change is the driving force behind ServiceNation, which played a key role in enacting the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in 2009, and Opportunity Nation, which focuses on fighting poverty and expanding economic opportunity.  In 2006 he was selected by US News and World Report as one of America's 25 Best Leaders, and was chosen by the Boston Globe Magazine as one of 11 Bostonians Changing the World.  He is the author of Big Citizenship: How Pragmatic Idealism Can Bring Out The Best In America.  Alan lives in Brookline, MA with his wife, Vanessa Kirsch, and their two children.

Harris Wofford
Franklin Project Senior Advisor
As a former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, chair of America's Promise, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and Special Assistant to President John F. Kennedy, Harris Wofford played a key role in passing the trailblazing legislation that created AmeriCorps, the Learn and Serve America program and the Corporation for National and Community Service. After helping launch the Peace Corps, Mr. Wofford held the post of special assistant to President John F. Kennedy, as well as chairman of the White House Sub-Cabinet Group on Civil Rights from 1961 to 1962. He also served as counsel to Rev. Theodore Hesburgh on the first U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and trustee to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change. Mr. Wofford was president of both the State University of New York’s new College at Old Westbury (1966-70) and of Bryn Mawr College (1970-78). Additionally, Mr. Wofford is a member of the National Commission on Service-Learning chaired by Senator John Glenn. He also serves on the boards of Youth Service America and the Points of Light Foundation. He is the author of numerous publications including Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties (1980). In 1950, Senator Wofford and his late wife Clare co-authored the book India Afire, which reported on the first year of independence in India and urged the civil rights movement in America to adopt Gandhi’s strategy of non-violent direct action.

Megan Walker
Megan Walker is the Chief of Staff of Civic Enterprises, where she manages the project portfolio, operations, and staff. Prior to that, she was Assistant Director of Programs in the Executive Office and Strategy Department at Independent Sector, a coalition of corporations, foundations, and private voluntary organizations that works to strengthen, lead and mobilize America's nonprofit sector. In that position, she coordinated strategic planning and board development efforts and co-led the NGen: Moving Nonprofit Leaders from Next to Now program for emerging nonprofit leaders. Prior to working at Independent Sector, she served as the Coordinator (acting Executive Director) of the NonProfit Alliance of Monroe County (a United Way partner) in Bloomington, Indiana and as a consultant and at Eli Lilly and Company in Geneva, Switzerland. She currently serves a vice presidential role on the national alumni boards of both the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance and The Fund for American Studies. She obtained her MPA in nonprofit management at Indiana University and her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, in her home state.

Tess Mason-Elder
Tess Mason-Elder is a policy analyst at Civic Enterprises.  Prior to joining Civic Enterprises, Tess served as Assistant Deputy Secretary of State in the California Secretary of State's office, where she focused on voter education and outreach and legislative affairs.  She also served as legislative affairs associate at California Volunteers, the state office charged with increasing the number of Californians engaged in national service and volunteerism.  Tess was a California Executive Fellow in 2006-2007.  She is completing her Masters in Public Administration at American University and holds a BA in Government and Religious Studies from Claremont McKenna College.

Laura McNulty
As Director of Special Projects for The Action Tank, Laura focuses on internal operations and supporting campaigns to drive social impact.  She is the co-founder of Health Horizons International (HHI), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving community health and primary health care in the Dominican Republic.  HHI works in solidarity with communities facing poverty by focusing on building capacity for continuity of patient care and promoting long-term solutions to public health priority issues, including potable water and sanitation.  HHI has been recognized by the Puerto Plata Provincial Ministry of Health for its community health workers program and integrated chronic disease management program, and for its work on cholera prevention.  Laura led HHI as Executive Director until August 2012, and continues her involvement on the Board of Directors.  She was awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award in 2012.  Previously, Laura served an AmeriCorps term in Somerville, MA as a Site Coordinator for LIFT, a non-profit organization working to combat poverty and expand opportunity for all people in the United States.  She is a summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Tufts University, where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Community Health and Spanish.

Fagan Harris
Fagan Harris is an MPhil candidate reading for Comparative Social Policy at the University of Oxford where he is a Rhodes Scholar researching labor market reform. Fagan is a Director at the Aspen Institute Impact Careers Initiative and a Fellow at Emerson Collective, an organization that advocates for fair and equitable social policies. Recently, Fagan served as Deputy Director of the NAACP-HRC initiative for same-sex marriage. Previously, Fagan supported the White House Council for Community Solutions. Fagan is a graduate of Stanford University where he was awarded the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for distinctive and exceptional contributions to undergraduate education and served as Vice President of the student body. After college, Fagan worked for College Track, a nonprofit organization working to close the achievement gap, where he administered a national scholarship program and supported a variety of after-school programs. Fagan studied Human Rights in Criminal Justice at the University of Limerick as a George J. Mitchell Scholar.

Adam Coretz
Adam Coretz serves as project coordinator for the Franklin Project. After completing his B.A. in Political Communication at The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs in May 2012, Adam led a comprehensive strategic communications campaign for 10 Tanker Air Carrier LLC, a company that owns and operates the world’s largest firefighting aircraft. Adam also served as press intern for US Congresswoman Kathy Hochul (NY-26).