In a run-down rowhouse and at nineteen years old, Bill Strickland founded around a pottery wheel what would grow to become a world-renowned Pittsburgh institution focused on arts education for youth and job training for adults. Today, Bill’s vision for the alleviation of human suffering through vocational training and cultural enrichment animates 17 centers in the US and abroad. Bill founded SGLI to support the centers he helped create, guide the creation of new centers, and train and mentor the next generation of social innovators and community leaders.
Send us an email at info@StricklandGLI.org to get connected with someone at SGLI.
One of the most innovative social enterprise thinkers I have ever met. The ‘Strickland’ thought process is that of a highly trained jazz musician, coupled with a keen business sense . . . He is definitely one of my major heroes.
SGLI is currently developing a fellowship program to train social innovators in how to start and run vocational training and cultural enrichment centers.
Back in the mid-1960s Bill Strickland was a directionless public school student in Pittsburgh who didn't really see a path for success for him or his fellow lower class, minority student friends. Then, one day he walked past a classroom and saw a teacher sitting at a pottery wheel...