Ambassador Swanee Hunt and Adria D. Goodson
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Swanee Hunt is the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. From 1993 to 1997, she served as ambassador to Austria, where she hosted negotiations and international symposia focused on stabilizing the neighboring Balkan states. Prior to that, she made her mark as a civic leader and philanthropist in Denver, where she led initiatives on public education, affordable housing, women's empowerment, and mental health services for two mayors and the governor. In 2007, Hunt was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. She is a widely published columnist and has authored two books: the award-winning This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace and a memoir, Half-Life of a Zealot. A composer and photographer, her world includes her husband (symphony conductor Charles Ansbacher), their three children, three grandchildren, horse, cat, and parrot.



Adria Goodson is the deputy director and chief learning officer for Hunt Alternatives Fund. She is responsible for the Prime Movers: Cultivating Social Capital program and supervises the ARTWorks for Kids and Political Parity program teams. Over the course of her career, she has worked with foundations and nonprofits to help them strategically focus their funding efforts on issues related to social justice. Dr. Goodson’s interests in social movements, social justice, and provoking change were seeded by her parents, who were active in the black civil rights movement. These interests were strengthened into lifetime passions by her Jesuit high school education, and her volunteer involvement with the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago’s anti-racism efforts and Industrial Areas Foundation mobilization efforts. Goodson has her PhD in sociology, specializing in movement theory, social policy, and philanthropy.

Blog Entries by Ambassador Swanee Hunt and Adria D. Goodson

Bold Changes, Great Leaders, Big Movements

Posted June 30, 2010 | 18:33:49 (EST)

Our country is facing a glut of complex problems -- such as poverty, climate change, and immigration -- that no single politician, political party, or other organization can solve in a lasting way, without help. For shifts of this magnitude, we need social movements, and social movements require compelling leaders....

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Today's Movement Leaders are Alive and Kicking

Posted April 22, 2009 | 16:36:08 (EST)

Influential figures like Mahatma Ghandi, Gloria Steinem, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, and Cesar Chavez transformed our lives through mass movements. These leaders motivated multitudes to get involved in shaping the society in which they lived. Ordinary people changed laws, molded a new culture, and drove America...

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It is Time to Serve

Posted February 18, 2009 | 17:31:00 (EST)

Americans love heroes, and leaders are crucial. So when we look at the accomplishments of the civil rights era, we tend to focus on Martin Luther King, Jr. However, as Diane Nash, a student sit-in leader in the '60s, points out, the actions of ordinary people are decisive in...

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