Champions of Change
Lisbeth Shepherd founded Green City Force (GCF) in 2009 to provide a career pathway for low-income young adults. GCF's model combines workforce development, national service and sustainability focused on behavior change. Green City Force was incubated by Blue Ridge Foundation NY and recognized by Mayor Bloomberg in 2013 as NYC’s Most Innovative Nonprofit. A Clinton Global Initiative member, Green City Force has built one of the largest urban corps with major funding from the NYS Corporation for National and Community Service funding, launched the Love Where You Live campaign in partnership with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to incite and inspire energy and water conservation via behavior change, and created the first urban farm on public housing in partnership with NYCHA and Added Value, all the while preparing young adults to enter career pathways to family-supporting jobs. Lisbeth previously founded Unis-Cité, the leading national youth service program in France which engages over 2000 annual corps members in 50 cities and inspired national legislation affecting 75K young adults. She is also co-author of Demain Le Service Civil, an Echoing Green alum, a Draper Richards Kaplan Fellow, an Audobon “Woman Greening the City,” a Yale graduate, and mother of two.