About Us

Vision

A world where all young people have access to high-quality opportunities to develop essential capacities for navigating an increasingly complex world, reaching their potential, and contributing to their communities.

Mission

To create opportunity ecosystems of evidence-based tools, learning experiences, and practices that exponentially increase access, optimize program quality, and accelerate impact for every young person. Our goal is to ensure that opportunities for learning and growth are distributed as equally as the abundance of talent in our communities. We accomplish this by integrating the science of learning and cutting-edge research with program innovation and community co-creation of learning solutions.

Our Beliefs

Youth, their families, and their communities are at the core of our work.

Increased access to high-quality, developmental opportunities can change the trajectory of a person’s life.

A growth mindset fuels better relationships, better organizations, and better communities.

System change and people change are intrinsically intertwined.

“An ounce of data is worth a pound of opinion.”

– Thomas Magoon

Curiosity and co-creation are at the heart of innovation and impact.

There is beauty and the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Disagreements are opportunities to learn while practicing humility, gratitude, honesty, and grace.

“The smallest of implementations is always worth more than the grandest of intentions.”

– Robin Sharma

Our profit is our impact.

Equity Statement

Our CELO vision, mission, and belief statements reflect our fundamental conviction that all people deserve fairness, justice, opportunity, inclusivity, and belonging and that the presence of these conditions increases our individual and collective talent and impact.

We recognize that our strength comes from our diversity and we celebrate the visible and invisible qualities that make each person unique. We respect and value diverse life experiences and commit to ensuring that access to opportunity is never constrained by one’s social location.

We understand these convictions reflect a continuous learning process that requires attention, action, and adaptation. We commit to aligning CELO’s culture and operating practices around these convictions.