Junctions by Ashoka
Proven Ideas, Creative Minds
Ashoka is the world's largest network of social entrepreneurs. Ashoka Fellows see the world not as it is, but as it should be. and build the pathways to get us there.
Their success as fixers begins with their creative minds - with the ability to see past problems towards often unexpected solutions. Decade after decade, they help us find a better way.
4,000 Ashoka Fellows. 90 Countries. Ideas that surprise you.
The Urgency of Now
The United States is at a junction - for our democracy, for our economy, for our response to climate change, migration, and more.
Many of the answers to guide us on a better path forward are out there - often in the hands of civil society leaders and social innovators - but they remain disconnected, under-resourced, and at the periphery.
Our problem is not a lack of solutions. It's that those solutions need to be coordinated, accelerated, and brought into the mainstream.
To dive even deeper, download the full deck.
Reaching Breakthrough in Half the Time
As Solutions Journalism founder David Bornstein reminds us with a metaphor: It's not necessarily that we need more cooking but better recipes.
The best way to do that? Bring some of the most creative minds and doers together to share what's working, learn from one another, and move forward in a more coordinated way.
We can cut in half the time it takes for a big idea to become the new normal.
Introducing: Junctions, by Ashoka
In 2024 we launched Ashoka's Junctions - dedicated spaces for cohorts of social entrepreneurs working in areas of urgent need in the United States.
These are not simply convenings - they are intimate, responsive spaces for proximate leaders to forge creative new directions in their fields.
Social entrepreneurs are often taking on the world at great financial and personal expense. They hunger for sanctuaries of reflection and learning where they can be generative with peers.
- 6-8 leading innovators for the public
- Sharing, learning, building together
- Convening around an area of urgent need
- Premium on transformation
- The goal is clarity and action: where do we go from here?
- Two days, one house, in the living room and around the dinner table
- Curated by Ashoka & our Fellows
The Ownership Economy Junction
In early 2024, the U.S. stock market hit record highs. Unemployment is low, inflation is starting to come down. By many standard indicators, the economy is humming along just fine.
But there’s an underlying problem: Far too few Americans have realistic pathways to build wealth and assets over time. It’s a problem that’s getting worse. And until we fix it, most Americans won’t achieve financial freedom, let alone the so-called American Dream.
So how might we reverse course — and enable millions more to live choice-filled lives? A good start is to listen to social innovators who are doing just that.
On January 10-12, 2024, we gathered with 6 Ashoka Fellows to look at what's working, from Central Appalachia to Seattle to Baltimore City. These solutions aren't aspirational - they are happening. The central question we aimed to answer: how do we transition towards an ownership economy as a pathway to financial freedom and more choice-filled lives?
The 6 Fellows that joined our Junction driving Economic Equity in the United States:
Alison Lingane
California
Alison is building demand in our economy for employee-owned businesses and facilitating the transition of companies to this more equitable model.
Brandon Dennison
West Virginia
Brandon is reinventing the Appalachian economy as a leading producer and exporter of clean energy, and a model for workforce development done right.
Bree Jones
Maryland
Bree is proving that development without displacement is possible – opening home ownership opportunities for legacy residents in Baltimore and revitalizing entire neighborhoods.
Frank Altman
Minnesota
Frank has played a central role in transforming community development finance in the US by creating new incentives for mainstream financial institutions to funnel capital into low-income communities across the country.
Molly Hemstreet
North Carolina
Molly is demonstrating a new
model of economic development in post-industrial America: rooted not in Dollar Generals and quick ROI but worker-owned cooperatives, legacy industries, and a strong middle class.
Tim Lampkin
Mississippi
Tim unlocks opportunities for wealth creation for Black, rural entrepreneurs by shifting our current economic development approach away from an overemphasis on collateral and prior wealth, and towards an appreciation of peer support and community prosperity.
Other Urgent Areas in 2024
Migration, Tech & Democracy, Caregiving, Aging & Longevity, and Climate Change.
Hear the Fellow's testimonies:
I wish every conference I’ve ever attended was instead a “Junction” like Ashoka’s Democracy Junction. The connections were 10X deeper, and it was the first time I’ve been at a professional event where I not only collaborated with other leaders on new ideas, but actually had space to operationalize next steps and connections to bring ideas to life. Sparking “collaboration between leaders” is the rhetoric of conferences but never the reality in my experience. At the Ashoka Junction we actually did it. We had the time and space to dig in and figure out how we can help each other, and it was clear that this meeting of just 8 leaders from 5 countries would be catalytic to all of our work and our democracies. This Junction structure is the only thing that will actually turn the impressive network of individual social entrepreneurs into the long-held vision of a team of teams.
- Seth Flaxman, Ashoka Fellow '13