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John Bridgeland

John Bridgeland

John Bridgeland

  • Founder and CEO, More Perfect
  • Executive Chairman, Office of American Possibilities (Law ‘87)

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 Executive Chairman and CEO of More Perfect, a bipartisan initiative with 25 Presidential Centers, National Archives Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Karsh Institute of Democracy, and 100 partners to protect and renew American democracy by advancing 5 Democracy Goals; Co-Founder and CEO of the COVID Collaborative; 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, and is co-founder of the Grad Nation campaign, which held more than 200 summits across all 50 states. Graduation rates have climbed from 71 percent in 2001 to 86.5 percent in 2020, translating into over 5 million more students graduating rather than dropping out. Bridgeland is also Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of the Service Year Alliance to expand civilian national service and founder of Tennis for America 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, with a foreword by General Stanley McChrystal, and gave a TED talk, One Nation Indivisible
 
In 2010, President Obama appointed Bridgeland to the White House Council for Community Solutions. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Bridgeland as Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and Assistant to the President and first Director of the Freedom Corps to coordinate policy on international, national, community, and faith-based service in the aftermath of 9/11.

Bridgeland began his professional career by practicing law in the New York and Paris, France offices of Davis Polk & Wardwell. Bridgeland graduated with honors in government from Harvard University, where he wrote his senior honors thesis under James Q. Wilson and played on the Harvard Varsity Tennis Team; studied at the College of Europe and Université Libre de Bruxelles as a Rotary International Fellow; and received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Bridgeland has honorary degrees and has delivered the commencement address at half a dozen colleges, including the College of William and Mary and Johns Hopkins University. 

He lives with his wife in McLean, Virginia, and has three children.