SOTRU’s Contributing Voices

We are so proud to be joined by such a talented, accomplished list of guest contributors. Be sure to explore the incredible work of their respective organizations and look for their posts regularly on our website.

Rich Harwood

A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people’s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We’re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on the State of the Re:Union website.

Mike McGrath

Mike McGrath is senior editor and chief information officer for the National Civic League. A former newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he is editor of the quarterly National Civic Review, which will be beginning its centennial year of publishing this spring.

Be sure to explore the inspiring work of the National Civic League including the All-America City Awards. Both the National Civic League and All-America City Awards are on Facebook.

Mike’s posts will appear every Thursday on the State of the Re:Union website.

Felicia Pride

Felicia Pride is an independent content producer, creative entrepreneur, and educator. She’s the executive editor of inReads.com, an initiative of WETA and the first community dedicated to “social readia.” She’s also a co-creator at 2MPower Media which focuses on projects that connect media, entertainment, and education. In addition to writing six books, Felicia has launched a youth film project, taught in the South Bronx, developed curricula for books/films, helped to launch an online teen book club, and completed her first feature screenplay which goes into production this summer. Currently, she is a fellow at the Hip-Hop Education Center at NYU. Visit her online at www.feliciapride.com or on Twitter at @feliciapride.

You can read Felicia’s posts every other Wednesday on the State of the Re:Union website.

Peter Block

Peter Block co-authored the book “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.” He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops to build the skills outlined in his books. He is the author of Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Answer to How Is Yes, and Community. He is the recipient of numerous awards, most recently the Organization Development Network’s 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award.

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John McKnight

John McKnight is an expert on communities. An Ohio native who currently lives near Chicago, he has spent decades organizing communities and researching them, primarily in the Windy City itself. In the course of his career, he mobilized neighborhoods during the civil rights movement, wrote several books about community development, created a center for urban affairs at Northwestern University, and even taught the current President a thing or two about advocacy. (Yes, it’s true: way back when, a young and eager Barack Obama interned at McKnight’s training program for community organizers in southeast Chicago). If that’s not enough, he recently co-authored a book called “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.”

State of the Re:Union will be featuring pieces from John McKnight and Peter Block of Abundant Community every other Monday.

Samantha Michaels

Samantha Michaels is a senior at Northwestern University with a double major in journalism and international studies. A Chicago native, she hopes to become a foreign correspondent or travel writer someday, and during college has tried to see as many new places as possible.

You can read her posts on the State of the Re:Union website every other Wednesday.