Photo: Students who have benefited from The Student DREAMers Alliance.

The Student DREAMers Alliance (SDA), a program of the Hispanic Alliance of South Carolina, has been selected as an inaugural recipient of the McNulty Prize Catalyst Fund, a new fund at the Aspen Institute, created to support innovative social ventures around the world at vital inflection points. Each organization is led by an Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) Fellow using their entrepreneurial spirit and expertise to address critical global problems.

The John P. McNulty Prize, with the Aspen Global Leadership Network, honors high-integrity, entrepreneurial leaders working to address intractable global challenges. Since 2008, the McNulty Foundation has invested more than $4.5 million in the McNulty Prize, recognizing 40 Laureates and their exceptional ventures working in more than 20 countries. This year, the McNulty Foundation has launched the Catalyst Fund to amplify this impact, providing unrestricted support to grow exceptional and promising ventures led by Aspen Global Leadership Network Fellows.

The SDA was launched in 2016 under the leadership of Adela Mendoza, executive director of the Hispanic Alliance, and a member of Liberty Fellowship and the Aspen Global Leadership Network. The SDA is an unprecedented youth leadership accelerator program designed to empower and magnify voices within immigrant student communities, to increase awareness of education inequity, and to advocate for changes in state legislation to provide for equal access to public, post-secondary education for all youth.

Thus far, SDA has empowered 43 high school leaders, and it is preparing to select its third class while expanding to additional schools. The support of the McNulty Foundation will provide this organization with an unprecedented platform to broaden and deepen its impact.

“Countless ventures that are driving social change are at critical moments to expand their impact,” said Anne Welsh McNulty, president of the John P. and Anne Welsh McNulty Foundation and Trustee of the Aspen Institute. “The Catalyst Fund gives us the opportunity to support many more models of empowering people around the world. The multiplier effect is enormous.”