Gleitsman Program in Leadership for Social Change

Gleitsman Program in Leadership for Social Change

With the income generated by a $20 million endowed gift from the estate of Alan L. Gleitsman, CPL launched The Gleitsman Program in Leadership for Social Change (GPLSC) in 2007. It was Mr. Gleitsman's hope that if the world knew of the accomplishments of social activists, others would be inspired by their stories and would fight to correct some of the other problems facing us, thereby improving the quality of life for all of us.

As our first substantial endowment, this extraordinary gift is a landmark event for the Center.

This gift has begun to fund the GPLSC’s three principal components: the Gleitsman Leadership Fellows Program, to provide significant financial support and a robust co-curricular experience to promising students interested in social change; a set of programmatic initiatives, including visiting scholars and curriculum development, to better prepare students as leaders for social change, whether through activism, social enterprise, or other strategies for change; and the Gleitsman Citizen Activist and International Activist Awards, each of which carries a $125,000 cash prize and enables students and the greater Harvard community to learn from the presence of a great change agent when she or he visits campus.