Weidman Powers, a 2013 Echoing Green Fellow and co-founder of Code2040, will lead Echoing Green’s impact strategy and programmatic initiatives including overseeing the fellowship, impact funding, and growth.
This month, Echoing Green welcomed Laura Weidman Powers to the organization as Head of Impact. Echoing Green is a nonprofit organization that finds emerging leaders with the best ideas for social innovation as early as possible, and sets them on a path to lifelong impact. Echoing Green’s community of nearly 1,000 social innovators includes past Fellows like first lady Michelle Obama, the founders of organizations like Teach For America and One Acre Fund, and public figures like Van Jones.
Weidman Powers co-founded Code2040 in 2012 and served as CEO before stepping down in 2018. In 2013, she received an Echoing Green Fellowship to scale the organization. Under Weidman Powers’ leadership, Code2040 grew into a $7 million organization, raised multiple rounds of funding, partnered with over 100 Silicon Valley companies looking to increase their diversity, built its fellows program to serve 150 students per summer at its height, and seeded a community of over 6,000 racial equity change agents.
In this new position at Echoing Green, Weidman Powers will lead the organization’s impact-oriented work, including all aspects of the organization’s flagship fellowship and impact funding, and will work cross-functionally to support priorities in strategy, development, communications, and operations.
“Echoing Green is honored to welcome Laura to our team,” said Echoing Green President Cheryl L. Dorsey. “Her expertise in nonprofit management and scale, strategic programming, measurement and evaluation, and diversity and inclusion will be catalytic for Echoing Green. As an Echoing Green Fellow herself, Laura is well-suited to implement impact-oriented programming that is not only strategically aligned with Echoing Green’s mission and goals, but also speaks to the learning needs and development of our transformative Fellows.”
Weidman Powers joins Echoing Green at a pivotal time as the organization carries out a five-year strategic plan that aims to increase the organization’s reach and impact.
“As an active and involved member of Echoing Green’s Fellowship community, I’m excited to join the Echoing Green team to support future classes of emerging social impact leaders,” Weidman Powers said. “Echoing Green has been instrumental to not only Code2040’s development, but also my growth as a leader. I’m eager to give back and offer my experience during this inflection point when the organization is working strategically to knit together the organization’s aspirations for the future with its legacy of the past.”
Weidman Powers also served in the Obama Administration as a Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer, focusing on issues of diversity and inclusion. Most recently, she served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at New Media Ventures and completed a stint in Rome as a guest lecturer on social entrepreneurship.
Weidman Powers is a 2018 Stanford Social Entrepreneur in Residence and a 2016-2017 New America California Fellow. In 2016, Ebony included her on their Power 100 list, Foreign Policy Magazine gave her a Global Thinker award, and The Root named her one of the 100 Most Influential African Americans. Her work has been covered by The New York Times, Forbes, NBC, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Inc., NPR, and others. She has a BA cum laude from Harvard College and a JD and an MBA from Stanford University.
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About Echoing Green
For more than 30 years, Echoing Green has been on the front lines of solving the world’s biggest problems, raising up the transformational leaders willing to speak truth to power and challenge the status quo. The organization finds emerging leaders with the best ideas for social innovation as early as possible, and sets them on a path to lifelong impact. Echoing Green’s community of nearly 1,000 social innovators includes past Fellows like First Lady Michelle Obama, the founders of organizations like Teach For America and One Acre Fund, and public figures like Van Jones. Built and refined over three decades, Echoing Green discovers tomorrow’s leaders, today, and then funds, connects, and supports a new generation of social impact leaders.
Media Contact:
Cara Lee
646-795-1496
cara@echoinggreen.org
