Julie Caldwell+Brief Bio

Julie Caldwell has dedicated the past 25 years to working with youth leaders, local communities, and world-changing organizations around the world to build sustainable programs that empower young people. In 1999, Julie received a grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to understand what works and how to sustain what works within the fields of youth and community development. For over 24 months, Julie traveled across the country meeting with national policy leaders in community youth development, seeing these leaders in action and seeking to understand how their approaches were producing measurable results in the lives of young people. Since that time, she has expanded her work and research globally. The result of this work is a comprehensive map of what infrastructure is in place to support young people—and more importantly, what infrastructure is desperately needed.

Julie has over 20 years of experience as a motivational speaker whose award winning presentation, “Being A Leader of Your Own Life” won the golden apple award at the National Educational Film Festival voted on by student judges. In the course of her work she has traveled the globe from New York to Amsterdam to Singapore engaging young people to take action. Her clients include the United Nations, International Association of Volunteer Efforts, Youth Service America and thousands of national and state youth leadership organizations in the United States.

Julie is the founder of Emerging Futures Youth Network (formerly Youth Helping Youth) where she won the Youth Service America social entrepreneur award for her Peer Mentoring curriculum and training program. She also received awards from United Parcel Services and the Annie E Casey Foundation for her training program engaging older youth to mentor younger youth.

In addition to community youth development work, Julie co-founded Emerging Futures Network an organization that brings together leaders from various sectors to work together to build a sustainable future. EFN won the Omidyar Network Community Favorite award for advancing social networking by hosting face-to-face events connected to on-line discussions and collaborative actions. Julie volunteers with the Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom, an organization endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Julie served as a board member for the National Council of Self-Esteem, Raising Nevada (asset development for Nevada’s youth) and Friends of Elko Peace Park. Locally, Julie facilitated a community wide appreciative inquiry project that resulted in building a community park which received local, state and federal funding due to it’s model use of engaging citizens as partners with city government. With her community in Elko, Nevada the project won the Nevada Arts Council award for the Universal Peace Wheel and Elko Peace Park, recognized for best landscape design by the National Endowment of the Arts.

Julie lives with her husband Dave and 2 cats in the sagebrush steppes of northeastern Nevada where she Skypes with her Grandchild and daughter who live in Oregon.