Building community. That is one of the big take-aways from this year’s New Fellows Retreat.

Every year, Echoing Green gathers the newest class of Fellows from all over the world to attend the New Fellows Retreat, where they spend time connecting with one another and the Echoing Green community, learning and sharing skills and best practices, and personally reflecting on their journey and vision for social change. In a setting that is intellectual, social, and deeply personal, our newest class of emerging social entrepreneurs engaged with other field leaders in workshops, round-table discussions, and community building activities that covered topics including fundraising, leadership training, design thinking, volunteer management, active listening, and personal road-mapping.

Social change work can be demanding and even isolating, and we’ve heard many of our Fellows say that if they’ve learned anything as a social entrepreneur, it’s that you cannot do it alone. A main theme of the retreat is providing the time and space for the Fellows to build a collective network of support to help each other usher their bold ideas to action. As 2011 Fellow Mark Hecker noted, “…we all left this weekend’s New Fellows Retreat knowing that we are certainly not alone in this work. There is immense comfort in knowing that I have friends, throughout the world, that are fighting as hard as I am to make stronger communities and a safer, healthier planet.”

We’re proud to welcome these twenty-two visionaries into the network of over 500 Echoing Green Alumni who are working toward delivering deep, sustainable impact for those most in need.

View photos from the New Fellows Retreat.

The New Fellows Retreat was sponsored by Barclays Capital and hosted by Deloitte.