Reed Shafer-Ray
Reed is Founder and CEO of Mountaintop International, a nonprofit which supports the world’s most promising local leaders to create transformational change through a paid one year full time fellowship.
Before Mountaintop, Reed served as Co-Founder and COO of Lead For America, where he helped the
nonprofit raise over $20m to create 400+ paid, full-time service fellowships in 150+ communities
spanning 42 states and benefiting 517k+ US residents.
At Mountaintop, Fellows receive a full-time stipend, two week in-person leadership institute hosted at Harvard University's Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics each July, 1:1 mentorship, grants, and a lifelong community of inspiring peers.
Mountaintop Fellows have started organizations that have benefited 1m+ people worldwide. Currently, Mountaintop has Fellows serving in 14 countries across Latin America, Asia, and Africa, working on everything from girls education in Afghanistan to peacebuilding in Sudan. Mountaintop has raised $731k+ to date from 8 paying partners and 25 donors, including Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies ($6b+ endowment) and Max Rhodes (billionaire founder of Faire). Last year, there were 6,517 fellowship candidates from 155 countries. Speakers for Mountaintop training events include Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and Shady ElGhazaly Harb, a leader of the Egyptian Revolution.
Growing up in Oklahoma, Reed became passionate about local leadership after a tornado in the neighboring town killed nine elementary school students and state leadership took no action to prevent future tragedies. Since the age of 17, Reed has helped achieve several policy victories, including co-drafting a Massachusetts gun violence prevention bill signed in 2018 and successfully advocating for reforms of the US organ transplant system (Reed is an anonymous living liver donor). Reed has worked full time for the past 6.5 years to support other leaders to deepen their impact in the communities they know best.
Reed can be contacted at reed.shaferray@mountaintop.international.