The Business of Social Change… Affecting the Future
 
Bill Strickland, President and CEO of Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild & the Bidwell Training Center,  has a remarkable story and an inspirational approach that brings hope to at-risk school kids and out-of-work adults.

His story is about a new blend of social advocacy and economic opportunity.  If his work in Pittsburgh and across the United States teaches any lesson it is that business today is the most compelling force for social change - and that making money and a difference can go together.

In the Manchester neighbourhood of Pittsburgh’s North Side, Bill has forged a series of programs to invigorate the community  - and in the process, he’s made a difference in the lives of hundreds of children and adults.  While still at college, Bill, now 51, founded the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, an after-school program to teach pottery skills to at-risk kids. Three years later, he also took over Bidwell Training Center, a neighbourhood vocational training program.  Since their inception, the two programs have each grown into more than $3 million-a-year operations, with a combined staff of 110 people.  The programs reach 475 adults and 400 kids each year, and more than 75% of the kids involved go on to college. With Strickland at the helm, the two program - now under one roof - are expanding in every direction imaginable: the building  even houses a jazz concert hall, which spawned an innovative Grammy Award-winning record label.

Bill has won a MacArthur Foundation grant, lectured at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and served on the board of the National Endowment for the Arts.