The Changemakers’ mission is to build capacity in youth, adults, and systems to support youth in driving positive impact in Tulsa right now and into the future.
Vision: A future where Tulsa is a model city for youth-driven impact. Youth are core catalysts for impact in their communities, and communities are actively engaged in identifying, developing, and empowering youth as leaders. Tulsa is consistently cultivating highly effective community leaders eager to empower successive generations.
In their first year of Teach For America in 2015, Jake Lerner and Andrew Spector recognized two things: 1) their 5th and 6th grade classrooms were filled with promising young leaders capable of driving positive impact in Tulsa right now, and 2) although they, as outsiders and newcomers, were being told by the Tulsa community that they are valuable community assets, their students, the insiders, were not always getting the same message. Jake and Andrew started Tulsa Changemakers because they believe that long-term and sustainable community transformation happens when youth are mobilized to drive change.
Tulsa Changemakers came under the fiscal sponsorship of Leadership Tulsa in 2017 and became a permanent program of Leadership Tulsa in 2022. Tulsa Changemakers functions as the youth arm of Leadership Tulsa, supporting in the development of a comprehensive pipeline and ecosystem for leadership in Tulsa.
Tulsa Changemakers achieves their mission and works toward their vision in three primary ways:
- Listen, Listen, Act is a semester long, 25-session afterschool and in-school youth leadership development and action program that empowers elementary, middle, and high school students, primarily from Title I schools in Tulsa Public and Union Public Schools, to make meaningful change in their schools and communities.
- Pathways Programs are initiatives that support in building a holistic ecosystem of opportunities for young people to develop and apply leadership skills. These programs include Power of Youth, a crash course in civic advocacy for 6th-12th graders primarily from Title I schools in Tulsa Public and Union Public Schools, and Monroe Philanthropists, a youth-led philanthropy program for 8th graders at Monroe Demonstration Academy, in partnership with Ed Darby Foundation.
- Training and Consulting builds capacity in adults and systems to elevate youth voice and leadership more effectively and authentically.
