The FAO Schwarz Fellowship community includes your Fellowship cohort as well as 80 alumni Fellows working for social justice. Alumni Fellows today include graduate students, organizational leaders, policy experts and others who have used the Fellowship to move quickly to the next step in their careers.

This network also includes the Fellowship’s Executive Director and Trustees of the FAO Schwarz Family Foundation. These leaders have lifelong commitments to social change. Many have years of experience  in social impact work in a variety of roles—as volunteers, staff members, board members, advisors, and leaders of social impact organizations. Their perspective can be valuable when you’re focusing on what’s next.

In addition, your network connects you with experienced directors and managers from the high-impact organizations that host FAO Schwarz Fellows in Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. They’re eager to offer their support to emerging nonprofit leaders.

The network is here to support you throughout your Fellowship, but it takes on new dimensions when you begin to think about next steps. Your FAO Schwarz Fellowship community can help you refine your career goals, expand your knowledge and explore new approaches to difficult social problems. They’ll listen to your ideas and concerns, give you feedback, and challenge you to do better. You can use this network for advice, contacts, feedback and brainstorming—not only when you are a Fellow, but for the rest of your life.

The FAO Fellowship Network is strong and growing. There’s a special bond among the group of alumni and current fellows who have the shared experience of this transformative two-year Fellowship program. Our Alumni Fellows are invited to participate in formal panel discussions with current Fellows and to participate in parts of the semi-annual retreats. Social events help strengthen the bonds in this network.

To support the Fellows’ network and keep everyone well-connected, we maintain a private FAO Schwarz Fellowship group on LinkedIn, host events, and publish an annual newsletter.