Brian Lewis is the deputy director of The New York Community Trust Leadership Fellows Program at the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College and chief program director for the Exalt youth development program.
“When I was growing up in Chicago, I knew I wanted to save the world, but I just didn’t know how.
Although my dad and grandmother taught in public schools, I didn’t do well as a student. I felt like the curriculum was very Eurocentric and my teachers really struggled with how to respond to the kind of questions I would ask.
When I got to college, I took different classes that interested me and I started noticing it was all about youth development, education, urban studies. I decided to become an educator, and my own school experiences helped me understand what wouldn’t work with young people. I took a job at an arts education nonprofit that had a strong social conscience and I realized how important it was for me to be engaged in community issues.
Another turning point for me came after an incident where two Chicago police officers accused me of stealing a car, which actually belonged to my mother, and beat me up. After I was unable to get authorities to pay attention to my mistreatment, I decided to dedicate myself to preventing that from happening to others.
While I was in graduate school in New York, a friend said I would like Exalt, the youth development nonprofit where he worked. He took me there one hot summer day, I met the staff and kids, and fell in love with the organization, which works with court-involved youth. I started as a teacher and have been there seven years. At Exalt, we try to be a bridge—working with young people, police officers, district attorneys, and judges—to make the justice system truly just.
In 2015, Gisele Castro, the executive director of Exalt, recommended me for The New York Community Trust Leadership Fellows Program. It had all the skill-building and smart people that I expected, but what I wasn’t expecting was the warmth, the vibrancy, and the community. The fellows from all the cohorts stay in contact, and we convene several times a year for events, such as talks with nonprofit leaders.
I learned a lot in academia, but the Fellows Program’s focus was on practitionership, how you apply the book knowledge. It was workplace-based learning, and that’s so valuable.
Earlier this year, I had the honor to be selected as deputy director of the Program, so I have been able to give back to an organization that gave me so much. I am helping strengthen the program and finding promising candidates for fellowships.
I can see now that what we are doing at the Leadership Fellows Program is transformational for the field. A lot of nonprofit leaders are aging out and there’s a lack of diverse candidates with a deep understanding of racial justice issues who can enter into those roles. We’re finding those individuals and training them so that they can succeed and make their organizations better and more effective.”
RECENTLY RELEASED: Leadership Standpoints: A Practical Framework for the Next Generation of Nonprofit Leaders was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021 and is based on five years of data collected from the New York Community Trust Leadership Fellows Program—designed to address leadership development gaps in the nonprofit sector. Read the book here.