John Bridgeland

John Bridgeland is Executive Chairman of the Office of American Possibilities, a civic moonshot factory that taps the entrepreneurial talent of Americans to solve public challenges together across divides. In that capacity, he is Co-Founder, Executive Chairman and CEO of More Perfect, a bipartisan initiative with 34 Presidential Centers (from Washington’s Mount Vernon through the Obama Foundation), National Archives Foundation, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Karsh Institute of Democracy, and 100 partners to protect and renew American democracy by advancing 5 foundational Democracy Goals; Co-Founder and CEO of the COVID Collaborative; that partnered with the Ad Council on a $330 million vaccination education campaign; and Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Welcome.US to engage Americans in supporting the resettlement of Afghan, Ukrainian and other refugees. Bridgeland is also Founding CEO and Vice Chairman of Malaria No More, launched at the White House Summit on Malaria he co-led. Since 2001, more than 14 million lives have been saved from malaria. 

He has been a leader for 20 years on the high school dropout challenge, with his report The Silent Epidemic generating a TIME cover story, two Oprah Shows, and other coverage, the development of a civic marshal plan to address it, and his co-leadership of the Grad Nation campaign.  His work on this civic moonshot was the lead cover story in the August 2024 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Graduation rates have climbed from 71 percent in 2000 to 86.5 percent in 2020, translating into over 5 million more students graduating rather than dropping out.  Bridgeland is Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of the Service Year Alliance, an initiative to create a civilian national service counterpart to military service in the United States.  In 2020, he founded Tennis for America, a year-of-service program designed for former college tennis players, with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, which awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Wimbledon Champion Stan Smith. He is also author of the book, Heart of the Nation: Volunteering and America's Civic Spirit, which was reissued in paperback on the 15th anniversary of 9/11 with a foreword by General Stanley McChrystal and is being assigned on college campuses.