Sondra Samuels

I am the President & CEO of the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), I am leading a revolutionary culture shift in North Minneapolis, focused on ending multigenerational poverty through education. Working in a collaboration of more than 35 partner nonprofits and schools, NAZ is working toward a single goal—to prepare 2,500 low-income North Minneapolis children to graduate from high school ready for college. NAZ is scaling up to support 1,000 parents as they turn the social service model on its head and lead the creation of a college-bound culture in their homes and community.

I am a national leader and tireless education reformer who advocates for evidence-based cradle-to-career solutions to the issues of concentrated poverty that plague low income communities and leave far too many children of color in the center of an egregious achievement gap. Under my leadership, NAZ was named a federal Promise Neighborhood and has become a nationally recognized model for comprehensive community development and systems change.