The Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit founded in 1949 that works toward a free, just, and equitable society through dialogue, leadership, and action on challenges facing the United States and the world.
AI’s Creative Promise Is Moving People From Consumption to Authorship
In a closing reflection at Shared Futures: The AI Forum, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation president Vilas Dhar argued that AI’s creative significance should be judged less by what machines can produce than by whether they help people recover agency as makers. Drawing on performances from the forum and a childhood memory of communal singing in India, Dhar framed the risk as passivity: a culture in which creativity is professionalized, distributed and consumed rather than shared. His cautious optimism was that AI could widen participation if it gives people without technical skills new ways to write, sing, build and imagine.
AI Distrust Makes Human Agency the Central Cultural Question
Opening Shared Futures: The AI Forum, Vivian Schiller of Aspen Digital and Vilas Dhar of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation argued that public distrust of AI is not an obstacle to the conversation but its starting point. Schiller framed AI as a contested tool that can either feel imposed on people or be used by artists and makers with agency; Dhar said the deeper issue is not the technology itself, but how people turn fear of replacement into meaning, art, and shared experience.
Eleven Collaborations Win $4.5 Million for Community Trust-Building
The Alliance for Social Trust and Allstate present the 2026 Trust in Practice Awards as an effort to fund and publicize trust-building as a practical discipline, not a civic sentiment. Tom Wilson says the awards are meant to show how trust can be designed into community engagement, while awardees describe that work as listening before acting, relying on local knowledge, building culturally accessible relationships, and sustaining repeated acts of connection under real community conditions.
Trust-Building Was Framed as Funded, Measurable Community Work
The 2026 Trust in Practice Summit highlights present trust-building as practical civic work that needs funding, tools, measurement, and local leadership, not simply a sentiment to be restored. Hosted in Chicago by the Alliance for Social Trust in partnership with Allstate, the summit convened more than 250 leaders and announced $1 million, $500,000, and $100,000 awards to 11 nonprofit collaborations across 10 states. Speakers argued that institutions should support community leaders, measure trust at a local level, and focus on the ordinary problem-solving through which trust is built.
AI Works Best When Domain Experts Control Its Use
Josh Tyrangiel’s AI for Good argues that artificial intelligence is most useful when domain experts, not technology companies or models themselves, decide how it is applied. In conversation with Aspen Economic Strategy Group director Melissa S. Kearney, Tyrangiel says his reporting found real gains in healthcare, education, government, and recycling, but mostly as incremental improvements shaped by doctors, teachers, public servants, and other practitioners. His case is not that AI’s risks are overstated, but that the policy question is how to preserve human authority while regulating the most dangerous capabilities.
Richwood Model Brings Post-Flood Volunteerism to 18 Appalachian Communities
Heather Foster and Katie Loudin of the West Virginia Community Development Hub argue that flood recovery in Appalachia should be treated as a chance to build lasting civic capacity, not only to repair damage. Drawing on the Hub’s work in Richwood, West Virginia, and a new Trust in Practice project across 18 flood-impacted communities, they make the case that post-disaster volunteerism can become durable local leadership when residents are supported to set priorities, deliver visible wins, and keep working together after outside relief groups leave.
Parity Homes Proved West Baltimore Demand Before Capital Arrived
Bree Jones, founder and chief executive of Parity Homes, used her Trust in Practice Summit keynote to argue that trust can operate as development infrastructure in neighborhoods damaged by disinvestment. In her account, Parity proved demand in West Baltimore before major capital arrived by using a $100 rendering, repeated conversations and an 800-person waitlist, then turned that social trust into a resident-led housing effort. Jones’s broader claim is that restoring vacant homes in historically Black neighborhoods requires rebuilding residents’ relationships to land, to one another and to collective power.
KABOOM! Tests Playgrounds as Civic Trust Infrastructure in Uvalde
KABOOM! chief executive Lysa Ratliff used a Trust in Practice Summit awardee spotlight to argue that playgrounds can be more than a post-crisis gesture in Uvalde, Texas. She said the organization’s work after the Robb Elementary shooting shifted from building a single playspace to addressing a citywide access gap, with trust built through repeated presence and community-designed projects. Ratliff’s central claim is that joy can be productive: a measurable source of belonging, connection and problem-solving capacity, if KABOOM! and its research partners can prove the effect.
Social Trust Requires People to Extend Trust Before Expecting It
Olajumoke “Jummy” Banjo, senior director of the Alliance for Social Trust at the Aspen Institute, closed the 2026 Trust in Practice Summit by arguing that social trust begins with people willing to extend it before they can expect it in return. In conversation with NPR’s Jenn White, Banjo framed trust-building as long-term, community-embedded work: less a matter of formal programming than of vulnerability, sustained relationships, and commitments whose benefits may not be visible for decades.
Community Relationships, Not Authority, Rebuild Social Trust
Frederick Riley, executive director of Weave: The Social Fabric Project, told the Trust in Practice Summit in Chicago that America’s trust problem is rooted less in disagreement than in the loss of relationships that once contained it. He argued that trust is rebuilt locally, through neighbors, mentors, coaches, business owners, and other “weavers” who create repeated contact and reasons for people to show up for one another. Programs and data can help, Riley said, but they cannot substitute for the relationships through which trust is formed.
Institutional Trust Is Collapsing, but Neighborhood Networks Remain Durable
At the 2026 Trust in Practice Summit, researchers and community leaders argued that America’s trust crisis looks different depending on where it is measured. Justin Blake of the Edelman Trust Institute and Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center described deep distrust in institutions, elections, and people outside one’s own information circles, while Lydia Prado of Lifespan Local and Frederick Riley of Weave pointed to neighborhoods where trust is still built through proximity, reciprocity, and repair. The panel’s shared case was that local trust is not enough to counter national forces driving division, but democratic renewal is unlikely without it.
Trust-Building Awards Draw $800 Million in Requests for $5 Million Pool
Allstate chief executive Tom Wilson used the 2026 Trust in Practice Summit in Chicago to argue that social trust should be treated as civic infrastructure that can be deliberately built, not as a vague cultural sentiment in decline. Announcing the inaugural Trust in Practice Awardees, Wilson said more than 1,600 proposals sought $800mn from a $5mn pool, evidence that community organizations are already trying to repair trust at scale but lack resources. The awards, he said, are intended to support and learn from local efforts that build trust through repeated action, shared purpose and relationships.
Trust-Building Is Cast as a Practice Learned Through Community Action
Vivian Schiller and Dan Porterfield opened the 2026 Trust in Practice Summit by framing social trust as work to be learned from practitioners, not simply a theme for discussion. Schiller described the Chicago gathering as a convening built around participation and exchange, while Porterfield tied the effort to the Aspen Institute’s postwar tradition of using dialogue to build understanding and spur action. Their central case was that Aspen and Allstate can help connect communities already rebuilding trust into a broader learning network.
Employee Ownership Needs Institutional-Grade Structures to Attract Scaled Capital
A panel at the Aspen Institute’s 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum argues that employee ownership is beginning to attract institutional interest, but still lacks the market infrastructure allocators need before committing capital at scale. Regina Carls of JPMorganChase, Chavon Sutton of Cambridge Associates, Jim Sorenson of the Sorenson Impact Foundation, and Emily Thomas of Morgan Stanley frame the opportunity as a financeable ownership-transition market — not simply a values-based cause. Their central case is that growth will depend on clearer structures, stronger managers, performance evidence, and regulatory confidence rather than broader enthusiasm alone.
Employee Ownership Requires Workplace Practices, Not Just Equity Grants
At the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, Adria Scharf moderated a panel arguing that employee ownership does not produce better jobs or stronger companies simply because workers receive shares or an ownership plan is created. Evan Edwards, Melissa Hoover, Chris Mackin and Anna-Lisa Miller made the case that ownership has to be built into workplace culture through information sharing, job quality, management practice, governance and accountability. Their shared contention was that the field’s business case depends on making ownership credible in daily operations, not treating it as a transaction or communications campaign.
Five Proposals Target the Scaling Bottlenecks in Employee Ownership
At the Aspen Institute’s 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, five speakers argued that expanding employee ownership is less a matter of promoting a single model than building the institutions that let ownership endure and scale. Sara Horowitz, Esteban Kelly, Sean-Tamba Matthew, Ginny Vanderslice, and Felipe Witchger each identified a different bottleneck — from weak membership structures and bespoke co-op development to seller-exit barriers, neglected ownership culture, and risk-averse capital.
States Test Financing and Training Models to Expand Employee Ownership
At the Aspen Institute’s 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, Iowa state Rep. Shannon Lundgren, New Jersey state Sen. Andrew Zwicker and the Department of Labor’s Hilary Abell argued that states are becoming the main testing ground for expanding employee ownership. Their case was practical rather than theoretical: states can help owners and workers navigate outreach, feasibility studies, financing and post-transition education, while Washington funds, convenes and learns from those experiments without imposing a single model.
Employee Ownership Gives Workers Voice Before It Builds Wealth
At the Aspen Institute’s 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, employee owners from Equal Exchange, Advisors for Change and Lewis Tree Services argued that ownership changes work first by changing workers’ agency, not simply their compensation. Nicole Vitello, Krystal Thompson and Charlie Arrindell described different models — a mature worker cooperative, a newer remote co-op and a large ESOP — but made a common case: employee ownership requires transparency, training and participation if workers are to have a real claim on the enterprise they help build.
Employee Ownership Should Advance Through Tax Simplification, Not New Carve-Outs
US Senator Ron Johnson used a keynote at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to argue that employee ownership belongs inside a broader effort to reduce capital concentration and put more productive assets in the hands of ordinary Americans. Johnson supported ESOPs when they reward workers who helped build a business, but warned against treating them as another narrow tax carve-out. His larger case was for a simpler tax code that taxes business income at the ownership level, preserves “wherewithal to pay,” and makes employee succession a more viable alternative to consolidation or private-equity sales.
Employee Ownership Field Needs Shared Infrastructure to Build Demand
Loren Rodgers, executive director of the National Center for Employee Ownership, used his keynote at Aspen’s 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to argue that the employee ownership field needs a staffed consortium, not another standalone organization. Rodgers said existing groups are duplicating work, missing referrals, and presenting a fragmented face to business owners; his proposal is to coordinate events, research, communications, and demand-building across ESOPs, worker cooperatives, employee ownership trusts, and other broad-based ownership models.
Employee Ownership Advocates Urged to Reject the Niche Label
Paula D’Ambrosa, Prudential Financial’s director of inclusive wealth-building, opened the second day of the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum by arguing that employee ownership should be understood as a longstanding American answer to who shares in economic growth. Drawing on a Revolutionary-era profit-sharing requirement for cod-fishing subsidies, she said the field should stop describing itself as niche and instead present employee ownership as a mainstream way for workers to share in the value they create, including as artificial intelligence reshapes the economy.
Employee Ownership Is Framed as a Mechanism for Sharing AI Productivity Gains
Aspen Institute’s Maureen Conway and Rutgers University’s William Castellano opened the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum by arguing that employee ownership should be treated as a practical response to economic insecurity and technological disruption, not just a fairness principle. Conway framed broad-based ownership as a way to give workers voice, wealth-building opportunities, and a stake in the value they help create, while Castellano tied it to AI-era management challenges, arguing that productivity gains from new technologies should be shared with employees through ownership, incentives, and workforce investment.
Employee Ownership Gave a Local Hardware Chain Its Succession Plan
Gina Schaefer, founder and co-owner of A Few Cool Hardware Stores, used her keynote at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to present employee ownership as a succession strategy for community-rooted businesses. After building a 14-store hardware company in the Washington region, Schaefer said selling to employees through an ESOP was a way to preserve the company’s culture, reward the workers who built it, and keep ownership tied to the communities the stores serve.
Federal Policy Should Make Partial ESOPs Work for Larger Employers
Danny Massey, head of strategy and communications for Expanding ESOPs, argues that employee ownership should be treated as a federal wealth-building policy, not mainly as a succession tool for small private companies. In a keynote at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, Massey says ESOPs have proved they can raise worker wealth and job quality, but their reach remains too narrow. His central case is that policy must make partial ESOPs viable for larger companies if broad-based ownership is to reach millions of workers rather than hundreds of firms a year.
ESOP Valuation Safe Harbor Bill Awaits Final House Action
Sen. Tim Kaine used his keynote at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to press the House to pass the Retire Through Ownership Act, a bipartisan ESOP bill he said would reduce uncertainty around company valuations. Kaine argued the measure would create a safe harbor for sellers who use existing IRS rules when selling to an employee stock ownership plan, protecting legitimate transactions from later challenges over whether workers were left carrying excessive debt.
Employee Ownership Could Prevent a Baby-Boomer Business Closure Wave
Bharat Ramamurti, the former deputy director of the National Economic Council, used a keynote at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to argue that employee ownership is an unusually low-tradeoff policy response to a looming wave of small-business succession. He warned that millions of baby-boomer-owned firms employing tens of millions of Americans could close as owners retire, with particular risks for rural communities and essential sectors. Ramamurti said federal policy should make worker buyouts easier through financing, transaction support, and tax advantages for owners who sell to employees.
Congress and Labor Department Action Could Remove Key Barriers to ESOP Formation
Jim Bonham, president and CEO of The ESOP Association, used his keynote at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to argue that ESOPs are entering their most important policy opening in decades. He said advocates must use that window to pass valuation legislation, shape Department of Labor rules, and ensure ESOPs are part of coming debates over AI, tax policy, and business succession — while defending the specific legal features that distinguish ESOPs from broader claims of employee ownership.
Employee Ownership Offers a Succession Path for Small Businesses
JPMorganChase philanthropy officer Gwyneth Galbraith used her closing remarks at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to argue that employee ownership should be treated as part of the mainstream small-business succession and economic-opportunity agenda. Galbraith said the model can help owners address transaction value, job preservation, and mission continuity at once, but scaling it will require more advisory capacity, capital, policy attention, and visibility among business owners.
Employee Ownership Needs Institutional Capital Channels to Reach Scale
Margot Brandenburg, a senior program officer for mission investments at the Ford Foundation, used her keynote at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to argue that employee ownership fits Ford’s social justice mission and its investment mandate. She made the case on three fronts: ownership can build worker wealth and voice, economic distribution matters for democracy, and research on ESOP productivity gains gives institutional investors a financial reason to pay attention. Scaling the field, she said, will require the fund managers and intermediaries that can move large pools of capital into employee-owned companies.
Employee Ownership’s Bottleneck Is Owner Awareness, Not Just Capital
Phil Reeves, founder and managing partner of Apis & Heritage, used his keynote at the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum to argue that employee ownership’s main constraint is not just capital, regulation, or transaction design, but demand among business owners. Reeves said the field must make employee ownership visible and credible to lower-middle-market sellers before they choose another exit path, while keeping the measure of success on whether workers gain meaningful wealth and agency.
The Aspen Institute Frames Leadership as Dialogue Across Difference
In a 75th-anniversary institutional statement, the Aspen Institute presents leadership as a discipline of listening, convening and acting across difference. Its executives argue that progress begins with people: dialogue builds common ground and trust, and that trust can be turned toward work on economic opportunity, energy and climate challenges, institutions and rising generations. President and chief executive Dan Porterfield closes the case as an invitation to “ignite human potential” and create new possibilities for a better world.
Older-Adult Nutrition Needs Medical Evidence and Community Infrastructure
Food & Society at the Aspen Institute and the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs convened Robert Blancato, Kathleen Graim and Patrick Stover to argue that older-adult nutrition should be treated as health infrastructure, not just emergency food aid. Their case is that effective interventions must account for changing physiology, chronic disease, isolation, mobility, mental health and home conditions, while producing the evidence and reimbursement pathways policymakers require. The discussion places the Older Americans Act, medically tailored meals, dietitians and community-based delivery at the center of that agenda.
Trust in Practice Awards Fund 11 Local Trust-Building Collaborations
The 2026 Trust in Practice Summit, convened in Chicago by the Alliance for Social Trust with the Aspen Institute and Allstate, presented trust-building as practical local work that requires funding, measurement, institutional listening and community relationships. Speakers including Daniel Porterfield, Tom Wilson and others argued that pluralism and institutional trust depend less on national messaging than on leaders embedded in communities, while the summit’s awards and Trust Map were offered as tools to support that work.
Aspen Institute Marks 75 Years of Humanistic Convening
Todd Breyfogle presents the Aspen Institute’s 75th anniversary as evidence of continuity rather than reinvention. Founded in 1949 by Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke amid postwar and early nuclear anxieties, the Institute is described as a humanistic project built on the idea that leaders need time, space, and rigorous dialogue before they can act well. Breyfogle argues that the same premise now underlies Aspen’s global network of programs, fellowships, and convenings.
Roaring Fork Valley Health Agenda Centers Access, Longevity, and Rural Care
Aspen Institute Vice President Ruth Katz and Aspen Valley Health CEO Richard Becker argue that this summer’s Aspen Ideas: Health programming should connect national debates over longevity, rural care, AI and wearables to the practical health needs of the Roaring Fork Valley. Becker’s central case is that rural health innovation should be judged by whether it broadens access, reduces fragmentation and keeps a diverse local population healthier, rather than by whether it delivers new tools only to those already best positioned to use them.
Pope Leo XIV Frames AI Governance as a Test of Human Dignity
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, argues that artificial intelligence should be judged first by its effects on human dignity, agency and power, not by its technical promise. In a panel moderated by Vivian Schiller, Vilas Dhar, Kim Daniels and Josh Good read the document as an effort to bring Catholic social teaching into AI debates over work, education, autonomous weapons, institutional accountability and the moral limits of markets and technology.
SNAP Purchase Restrictions Are Creating Checkout Confusion, Not Clearer Nutrition
In a Food & Society at the Aspen Institute and Global Food Institute webinar on SNAP purchase restrictions, practitioners argued that the policies are being experienced less as nutrition guidance than as a patchwork of checkout-line denials. Propel’s Justin King, Feeding Texas’s Celia Cole, Restore OKC’s Rachel Newman and NACS’s Margaret Mannion said state-by-state rules are confusing recipients, burdening small retailers and driving substitutions or cash purchases rather than clear evidence of healthier diets. Their practical alternative was to put more weight on access and incentives than prohibition.
Pope Leo XIV’s AI Encyclical Ties Safety Rules to Human Dignity
A panel convened by Aspen Digital treated Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnificent Humanity, as an authoritative Catholic intervention in AI governance rather than a narrowly theological text. Kim Daniels, Vilas Dhar, and Josh Good argued that the document judges AI by its effects on human dignity, especially for workers, students, creative professionals, and vulnerable communities, while pointing to safety regulation, retraining, and education as practical tests. The unresolved problem, Daniels said, is whether the Church can move that teaching from Rome into parishes, civic institutions, classrooms, and technology work.
AZ Plays Aims to Close Arizona’s Youth Team Sports Participation Gap
Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley announced AZ Plays, a Phoenix effort tied to the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, to study and expand youth-sports access across schools and local partners. Marcia Mintz framed the work as a push to understand and lift up youth sports in the Valley, while Larry Fitzgerald said the urgency is Arizona’s near-bottom national ranking in team-sports participation. Fitzgerald and other speakers argued that access to play is not only a sports issue, but a route to mentorship, discipline, confidence, and leadership for children.
Work Alone Leaves 42% of U.S. Households Below Survival Budgets
Stephanie Hoopes of United For ALICE said 42% of U.S. households were below the group’s conservative survival threshold in 2023, including many families above the federal poverty line but unable to cover basic costs. In a May 2026 discussion hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program and United For ALICE, speakers argued that this makes hardship among working households a job-quality and affordability problem, not simply a poverty problem. They presented ALICE at Work as an employer-focused effort to use local data and peer cohorts to change the workplace practices that affect income, costs, stability, and advancement.
ESPN Opens $10,000 Grant Round for Youth Sports Innovation
ESPN’s Jennifer Paulett used the Project Play Summit 2026 to frame Take Back Sports as a participation-first youth sports initiative, arguing that the goal is more children playing in safe, positive environments rather than a pipeline for elite athletes. Paulett said ESPN and Disney will open a second round of the Take Back Sports Innovation Challenge, offering $10,000 grants to summit organizations with 30 days to apply.
Youth Sports Campaign Targets Coach Training to Reduce Early Dropout
DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation and GameChanger are using their Most Valuable Coach announcement to argue that youth sports retention depends heavily on the adults leading teams. Rick Jordan of the foundation and Rebecca Wasserman of GameChanger frame the campaign around a coaching gap: children are more likely to keep playing when coaches are trained to create safe, predictable and supportive environments. The effort positions healing-centered coaching as practical sideline behavior, not therapy, with resources aimed at volunteer coaches who shape whether children stay in the game.
U.S. Soccer Plans School-Based Push to Close Youth Access Gaps
Project Play’s national roundtable members argued that raising youth sports participation to 63% by 2030 will require schools and after-school programs to become a larger delivery system, not simply more club recruitment. Lex Chalat of U.S. Soccer’s Soccer Forward Foundation positioned Soccer at Schools as a legacy strategy tied to the 2026 World Cup, LA28 and the Women’s World Cup, while Bank of America’s Cindy Nguyen Thomas and Massachusetts Youth Soccer’s Rob Holliday described corporate, state and local roles in turning national attention into affordable access.
63x30 Adds Community Sports Model Reaching 600,000 Children a Year
Project Play’s 63x30 discussion on communities presents Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Buffalo Wild Wings’ All-Stars partnership as a scalable way to make youth sports accessible beyond schools and pay-to-play systems. Jim Clark of BGCA and Stuart Brown of the Inspire Brands Foundation argue that long-term funding for uniforms, equipment, trained staff and league costs can turn community clubs into reliable sports settings for hundreds of thousands of children, with benefits they tie to physical health, mental health and broader youth development.
Champion Athletes Can Open Doors, but Students Must Lead
Tim Brown, the Heisman Trophy winner and Pro Football Hall of Famer, argues that athlete leadership matters only when it is close enough for young people to trust and carry themselves. In a conversation moderated by Binta Niambi Brown, he makes the case that high-profile athletes can serve as mentors and resources, but lasting youth leadership has to be built inside schools, teams, and neighborhoods rather than delivered from outside. His examples—from his mother, Howie Long, Lou Holtz, and current college football—frame leadership as structure, belief, presence, and transmission.
Youth Sports Participation Rebounds, but 63% Goal Requires System Change
At an Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program session on the 63x30 challenge, Ashleigh Huffman said youth sports participation has rebounded from its COVID-era low but remains constrained by a system built to “weed folks out.” Rick Jordan of the DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation and Steve Tanner of PGA of America argued that reaching 63% participation by 2030 will require more than new programs: longer community investments, coordinated sport pathways, practical access to facilities and equipment, and coaches who make children want to return.
The Athlete-Artist Divide Narrows Youth Development Too Early
LJ Rader, founder of Art But Make It Sports, argues that children are pushed too early to choose between identities such as athlete and artist, and lose developmental range in the process. In a conversation moderated by LACMA curator Britt Salvesen, Rader uses his art-and-sports image pairings to make the case that both fields train attention, emotion, improvisation and tolerance for beginnerhood. Their shared point is practical rather than romantic: young people benefit when they are allowed to keep playing across more than one kind of practice.
Youth Sports Safety Reform Needs National Standards and Dedicated Funding
At Project Play Summit 2026, Benita Fitzgerald-Mosley of the U.S. Center for SafeSport and Seth Lieberman of Ankored argued that youth sports safety has become a governance problem as much as a cultural one. Parents increasingly expect background checks, abuse-prevention training and injury safeguards, but the speakers said today’s system is fragmented, underfunded and outside SafeSport’s reach for much of grassroots sport. The reform case is for common standards, portable credentials, dedicated funding and a stronger central safety infrastructure by 2028.
Youth Sports Have Proven ACL Prevention Tools but Rarely Use Them
Aspen Institute moderator Vince Minjares and sports-medicine physicians Cindy Chang and Ryan Lingor argue that youth sports already have proven tools to reduce many ACL injuries, but schools, clubs and leagues are not using them consistently. Drawing on the National ACL Injury Coalition’s work with Hospital for Special Surgery, they frame the problem as an implementation failure: neuromuscular training, strength work and better movement development need to be built into ordinary practice, especially for girls in cutting and landing sports.
Student Captains Are Turning Team Leadership Into Civic Advocacy
At a Heisman Foundation discussion moderated by CEO Jeff Price, high school captains Guywintz Jules, Ma’Net Richardson and Carol Yan argued that student-athlete leadership already extends beyond team performance into civic work. They described captaincy as a way to identify needs, press adults for resources and create access, whether through a Salem youth commission, advocacy for a first-year flag football team or a student-run golf program. The case they made for future leadership development was practical: give young captains mentors and access, but do not take the work out of their hands.
Youth Sport Reform Is Shifting From Programs to Children’s Rights Standards
Tom Farrey of the Aspen Institute, USA Volleyball chair Cassidy Lichtman, and Deloitte’s Mariam Mansury argue that U.S. youth sport needs new defaults, not just new programs. Using Norway’s child-first sport system, USA Volleyball’s development work, and city adoption of the Children’s Bill of Rights in Sports, they make the case for treating youth sport as an ecosystem governed by minimum standards around access, safety, coaching quality, developmentally appropriate play, and joy.
Youth Sports AI Needs Guardrails Before Children Become Data Points
Zarif Haque of The Good Game, Travis Roache, author of Coaching in the Age of AI, and Calli Schroeder of the Electronic Privacy Information Center argue that AI can widen access to coaching and reduce administrative burdens in youth sports, but only if adults keep it subordinate to human judgment. Their central warning is that tools built to track, rank, or predict children can turn play into surveillance and optimization, undermining privacy, development, and the human relationships that make youth sports worth protecting.
Boys Still Want Sports, but the Participation Supply Has Shrunk
The Aspen Institute and the American Institute for Boys and Men argue that declining or stagnant boys’ sports participation is not mainly a demand problem: boys still want to play, but too many are shut out by narrow team models, early specialization, performance pressure and underprepared adult support. Alanna Williams and Zach Moo Young frame the policy response as expanding the supply of lower-pressure, developmentally appropriate opportunities without reducing girls’ access. Charlie Ward adds a coach’s case for flexibility, arguing that programs need to make room for boys whose contributions do not fit standard roster logic.
A $40 Billion Youth Sports Market Lacks Basic Child Safeguards
Tom Farrey of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program argues that youth sports need a basic governance layer if they are to deliver on their civic and developmental promise. In a conversation moderated by Chuck Todd, Farrey makes the case for registration, safety standards, abuse reporting, school-based support and a children’s rights framework, while Todd frames youth sports as one of the few remaining local institutions that still brings divided communities together. Their shared premise is that more participation is not enough if the system remains privatized, fragmented and weakly accountable.
Private Capital’s Youth-Sports Promise Depends on Local Access and Accountability
Private capital can make youth sports more local and accessible only if it is tied to participation, data rights and enforceable standards, according to Jay Adya of Elysian Park Ventures; Katherine Van Dyck of the American Economic Liberties Project argues that the same investment machinery can just as easily produce lock-in and extraction. Their dispute turns on whether league partnerships and better-designed business models can discipline investors, or whether youth sports needs antitrust enforcement and legal accountability to prevent profit-driven systems from capturing families.
Heisman Backs National Leadership Academy for High School Team Captains
Dan Reed, chair of the Heisman Foundation, announced the Aspen Institute’s Captains Leadership Academy as a national effort to turn high school sports captains into broader civic leaders. Reed said Heisman is making the largest single grant in its history as founding partner, arguing that students already chosen to lead teams can be trained, mentored and supported to lead in schools and communities. Pete Weber of the Aspen Institute placed the academy within a wider push to expand youth leadership development, with IMG Academy also named as a partner.
Boston’s Youth Sports Gap Is Coordination, Not Just Cost
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu argues that building a “city of champions” depends less on Boston’s sports culture than on making youth sports easier for families to find, join, and sustain. In a conversation with Joon Lee, Wu says the city’s role is to coordinate a fragmented network of schools, parks, nonprofits, volunteers, professional teams, and facilities so that cost, information, transportation, registration, and maintenance do not determine which children get to play.
Cost, Transit, and Field Shortages Limit Youth Soccer Access
A new Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program report on youth soccer in New York and New Jersey, discussed by Tom Farrey and philanthropist Laurie Tisch, argues that the region’s central problem is not children’s interest in the game but unequal access to it. Farrey said the report points to cost, transportation, field shortages and gender gaps as the barriers shaping who gets to play, while Tisch said the findings give her philanthropy a roadmap for a $10mn push into local soccer programs, fields and support for girls’ participation.
Twenty Organizations and Schools Named 2026 Project Play Champions
Molly Kaye, Nickelodeon’s senior public affairs manager, used an Aspen Institute Project Play Summit announcement to name 20 organizations and schools as the 2026 Project Play Champions cohort, powered by Nickelodeon Our World. Kaye framed the recognition as a commitment to youth sports that are not only safer and more inclusive, but shaped by children themselves, arguing that kids build agency when they are trusted to choose, collaborate, lead and be heard.
Girls’ Sports Gains Depend on Systems That Prevent Female Athlete Injuries
Kate Ackerman, co-founder and director of the Women’s Health, Sports & Performance Institute, argues that expanding girls’ access to sport is insufficient if the systems around them are not built to keep them healthy. In her Play Talk presentation, she says injury prevention, trained coaches, appropriate medical support, nutrition and mental health resources, and faster translation of female-specific research are prerequisites for girls and women to receive the lifelong benefits sports can offer.
Nasal Breathing Gives Coaches a Practical Tool for Stress Regulation
Chi Kim, CEO of Pure Edge Inc., argues that nasal breathing gives coaches and adults around teams a simple way to recognize and regulate stress before it shapes attention, decision-making, and behavior. In her talk, she links pressure to a narrowing of physiological and cognitive capacity, then presents counted breathing through the nose as a route back toward parasympathetic activation and steadier presence. Her point is deliberately practical: before correcting an athlete or reacting to a play, adults should manage the state they bring into the team environment.
Youth Sports Providers Are Missing a $5.7 Billion Afterschool Funding System
Kari Pardoe of the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation argues that youth sports providers are missing a major path to growth by treating afterschool as a separate field. Drawing on work in Southeast Michigan and Western New York, she says sports organizations that see themselves as youth development providers can use afterschool networks, training systems, and public funding to reach children who are not already in organized sports.
Civic Learning Is Career Preparation When Students Practice Agency
The Aspen Education & Society Program’s final Redefining Student Engagement session argued that civic learning and career readiness are not competing priorities but overlapping forms of preparation. Elizabeth Zamudio, Elizabeth Clay Roy, Jennifer Tran and Braden Chapman made the case that students develop the skills schools and employers say they value — communication, collaboration, problem-solving, perspective taking and civil disagreement — when they have real agency in schools, supported channels to influence decisions, and families and institutions that treat youth voice as part of civic life.
Anti-Muslim Politics Is Testing the Limits of Religious Liberty
Anti-Muslim politics in the US and UK works by recasting Islam not as a religion but as an ideology, racial threat or civilizational enemy, according to legal scholar Asma Uddin, journalist Hannah Allam and British commentator Fraser Nelson. Uddin argues that this move can push Muslims outside religious-liberty protections; Nelson sees it as a revival of sectarian tribalism dressed in Christian language; and Allam warns that journalism and national-security policy have helped make Muslims a suspect category whose logic now extends to others.
A 500-Square-Mile Colorado District Builds Belonging Through Community Ties
In a Rooted + Rising reflection, Carmen Anarella argues that rural education in South Routt County, Colorado, cannot be understood by the label rural alone. Drawing on Yampa and the Soroco school district, which spans 500 square miles, she describes a school system whose strength comes from long relationships between students, families, teachers, neighbors and alumni. For Anarella, the defining feature is not remoteness but the way the community keeps showing up for young people — in classrooms, at milestones and during emergencies.
Tulsa Youth Leader Says Schools Measure Students More Than Support Them
Komari Crisp presents Tulsa’s Black history, especially Greenwood and Black Wall Street, as a source of identity and power for young people. But she says her school experience often made students feel like numbers, valued most visibly when standardized test scores were at stake rather than consistently supported as people. Crisp points to Tulsa Changemakers and her own Youth Action Coalition as a different model: sustained support that trusts young people to speak, lead, and take part in decisions affecting them.
Rural Schools Have Local Care but Lack Outside Investment
In a Rooted + Rising reflection on rural education in London, Kentucky, Trey Jackson argues that local schools are sustained by unusually dense networks of care but constrained by a lack of outside investment. Jackson describes teachers, coaches, neighbors, and nonprofits as central to students’ lives, while warning that underpaid staff, staffing shortages, and unmet basic needs cannot be solved by community commitment alone. For him, the problem is not that rural communities lack will; it is that their schools are being asked to make care do the work of resources.
Tulsa Youth Organizing Targets the High-School-to-College Gap
In a Rooted + Rising welcome video, Tulsa youth journalist Kamari Crisp frames her work around the transition from high school to college, a gap she says led her to start the Youth Action Coalition. Crisp argues that youth and education in Tulsa cannot be separated from race, culture, inequity and local history, including her own experience at Booker T. Washington High School. She says her reporting will also look for positive stories in the city, holding injustice and local possibility in the same frame.
Eastern Kentucky’s Rural Education Story Starts With Local Experience
Trey Jackson’s Rooted + Rising welcome video introduces him as an Eastern Kentucky youth journalist whose authority comes from having lived and studied in the rural education system he plans to document. Jackson argues that national conversations often overlook his region, and says his work will focus on local institutions he knows directly, including his public high school in London, Kentucky, and the University of the Cumberlands, where he sees people trying to address challenges and build reasons for students and talent to stay.
Low-Wealth Families Need Cash Flow, Seed Capital, and Appreciating Assets
Aspen FSP’s recording argues that the affordability crisis makes wealth building more urgent, not less, because families cannot achieve durable stability on constrained cash flow alone. Joanna Smith-Ramani and Genevieve Melford frame stability and wealth as mutually reinforcing, while leaders from Compass Working Capital, GRO and Stackwell point to programs that combine income support, externally funded capital, trusted guidance and routes into appreciating assets. Their case is that low-wealth households need the same kinds of balance-sheet supports that higher-income families often receive through employer benefits, tax advantages and private wealth.
AI Evaluations Give Philanthropy a Lever Over What Developers Optimize
Aspen Digital’s B Cavello argues that AI evaluations should be understood by philanthropy as a way to shape the AI ecosystem, not merely as technical measurements or benchmark leaderboards. In a briefing for philanthropic leaders convened with Siegel Family Endowment, Cavello says funders can influence what AI developers optimize for, support outside accountability through audits and related tools, and help users judge when systems are appropriate for their needs.