Sara Potler, a life-long dancer and previous professional performer, was a Fulbright Scholar in Bogotá, Colombia when she wrote, developed, implemented, and evaluated an innovative peace education, conflict resolution program called Aulas en Paz (Peaceable Classrooms) with the University of Los Andes in Bogotá in 2007. This multi-faceted program includes familial workshops, classroom exercises, targeted group work, and language and fine arts. In Bogotá, she learned to fuse her passions for international development, peacebuilding, education and dance while designing and leading the original Dance 4 Peace curriculum with third graders in Colombian public elementary schools.
Prior to her role as Founder and CEO of Dance 4 Peace, Sara was the Chief Operating Officer for Atlas Corps, an international exchange for nonprofit leaders around the world. Sara built and maintained partnerships with organizations such as the UN Foundation, Ashoka, Grameen Foundation and Peace Corps. She strategized and successfully executed the winning of $400,000 through microgiving online fundraising campaigns such as America's Giving Challenge, Chase Community Giving via Facebook, and Pepsi Refresh Everything. While at Atlas Corps, she played a lead role in increasing more than seven-fold the size of the program, taking the organizational budget from $300,000 to $1.3 million, expanding to new markets within the U.S. from one program site to five, and expanding the staff from she and the Founder to nine full-time employees.
A graduate of the University of Virginia, Sara is a Cordes Fellow with the Opportunity Collaboration; the only U.S. recipient of the Youth Leader Award out of over 1,800 applicants in the Americas by the Inter-American Development Bank Annual Board of Governors Meeting; a Beyond Sport Award Finalist; a StartingBloc Fellow; a Finalist Nominee Social Entrepreneur/Innovator for the Women's Information Network 18th Annual Young Women of Achievement Award; an Arts and Healing Network Awardee; a Global Semi-Finalist with the International Youth Foundation YouthActionNet; and a Semi-Finalist in the Global Social Venture Competition.
About The Founder
“I have no doubt of the effectiveness of this method, and you inspired me to think of new creative ways to engage the students with this complex topic of peace. Peace is physical, peace is active, and you allowed them to experience that (even if they were not fully aware of it) in your workshop.”
