Bill Drayton life and biography

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. He is responsible for the rise of the phrase "social entrepreneur", a concept first found in print in 1972.

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.

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. Drayton was born in 1943 in New York City.

Drayton attended high school at Andover and went on to Harvard where he received his BA in 1965. Drayton entered Balliol College, Oxford and received an MA in 1967, after which he went to Yale Law School where he received his JD in 1970.

Drayton became a manager and management consultant, working for McKinsey and Company as a consultant for almost ten years. 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.

Drayton has received many awards and acknowledgments for his achievements. He was elected one of the early MacArthur Fellows for his work, including the founding of Ashoka. The American Society of Public Administration and the National Academy of Public Administration jointly awarded him their National Public Service Award and he has also been named a Preiskel-Silverman Fellow for Yale Law School and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. On May 25, 2009 he was awarded an honorary degree, Doctorate of Humane Letters, by Yale University at Commencement. David Gergen has called Drayton the “godfather of social entrepreneurship.” And in 2008, Drayton was named a “visionary” as one of Utne Reader magazine’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World.”

Bill Drayton invented the word social entrepreneur. Literally. He coined the now-famous and oft-used phrase in 1972 after taking a trip to India to help a man named Vinoba Bhave ask for, receive, and then redistribute land so that more people in India would be landowners and be able to contribute to their respective communities. The journey, which ultimately succeeded in redistributing 7 million acres of land, was a turning point for Drayton's life, and led him on the path of social entrepreneurship for the duration of his career. Today, Drayton is the founder and CEO of Ashoka, a world-famous organization that was created to help support, connect, and build up entrepreneurs and their ideas. Many of the most innovative and successful social entrepreneurs of our time have received grants and fellowships through Ashoka. By funding the work of social entrepreneurs around the world, Drayton has impacted issues ranging from human rights abuses to climate change to poverty. It doesn't hurt that he has a brilliant mind for business either - with degrees from Harvard and Oxford, Drayton has dedicated his life to activism, but has also worked at the prestigious McKinsey & Co. as a consultant and the Environmental Protection Agency as an assistant administrator. For his extraordinary contributions to social change, Drayton has been named a MacArthur Fellow and has received a National Public Service Award.

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