Bill Drayton

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For other men with this name, see William Drayton (disambiguation).
Bill Drayton as Ashoka Celebrates its 25th Anniversary (2006)
Bill Drayton as Ashoka Celebrates its 25th Anniversary (2006)

William "Bill" Drayton is a social entrepreneur. Born in 1943 in New York City, U.S. Drayton was named by US News & World Report as one of America's 25 Best Leaders in 2005.[1] He is sometimes mistakenly credited with having coined the phrase "social entrepreneur", although it was already in use by 1972.[2]

Drayton is the founder and current Chair of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding and fostering social entrepreneurs worldwide. Drayton also chairs the Community Greens and Get America Working! organizations.

[edit] Biography

Drayton's mother emigrated to the US from Australia. His father was an American who became an explorer. Public service and strong values run through the history of both parents' families - including several of the earliest anti-slavery abolitionist and women's leaders in the U.S.[3] Drayton was born in 1943 in New York City.

Drayton attended high school at the Phillips Academy and went on to Harvard where received his BA in 1965. Drayton entered Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and received an MA 1967, after which he went to Yale Law School where he received his JD in 1970.

Bill Drayton
Bill Drayton

Drayton became a manager and management consultant, working for McKinsey and Company as a consultant for almost ten years.[4] During the Carter administration (1977-1981) he was an Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency where he launched emissions trading among other reforms. He has been a visiting Professor at Harvard and Stanford.[5]

Drayton has received many awards for his achievements. He was elected one of the early MacArthur Fellows for his work, including the founding of Ashoka.[6] The American Society of Public Administration and the National Academy of Public Administration jointly awarded him their National Public Service Award[7] and he has also been named a Preiskel-Silverman Fellow for Yale Law School[citation needed] and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[8]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ USNews.com: The social entrepreneur: Bill Drayton
  2. ^ see J Banks, The Sociology of Social Movements, London, MacMillan, 1972.
  3. ^ GOOD Magazine: GOOD Q&A: Social Entrepreneur Bill Drayton On His White House Years - Living on The Huffington Post
  4. ^ Bill Drayton Paints a Vision of Changemaking
  5. ^ Events - Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship(CASE)
  6. ^ He is not to be confused with William Drayton of reality television fame.MacArthur Fellows, November 1984, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved February 9, 2008.
  7. ^ National Public Service Awards
  8. ^ http://www.amacad.org/members/alpha_list.pdf