New School President Bob Kerrey engages in a one-on-one discussion with Bill Shore, founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit working to end childhood hunger in the United States.

The forum features Shore’s most recent book, The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men (PublicAffairs, November 2010), which profiles a group of scientists’ effort to develop a malaria vaccine despite tremendous odds. Their persistence and hope reveal the entrepreneurial strategies and qualities of character required to solve problems affecting people so voiceless, vulnerable, and economically marginalized that the solutions themselves have no market.

Shore founded Share Our Strength in 1984 after the Ethiopian famine heightened concern about hunger in the United States. He is also chairman of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength. Community Wealth Ventures collaborates with foundations and nonprofit organizations to design and implement innovative strategies that foster growth and sustainability to promote social change.

From 1978 to 1987, Shore served on the senatorial and presidential campaign staffs of U.S. Senator Gary Hart (D-Colorado). From 1988 to 1991, he served as chief of staff for U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska). Shore describes his transition from politics to community service and his prescription for community change in his first book, Revolution of the Heart (Riverhead Press, 1995). His second book, The Cathedral Within (Random House, 1999), profiles a new breed of community leaders who are tapping every sector of society to improve community life.  

A native of Pittsburgh, Shore earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree at George Washington University in Washington, DC. He serves on the board of directors of the Timberland Company and Venture Philanthropy Partners. In October 2005, Shore was named one of America’s Best Leaders by US News & World Report.

Shore has served as an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is an advisor to the Reynolds Foundation Fellowship program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.