RSA US awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal (BFM) to Raj Chetty for his groundbreaking research at Opportunity Insights advancing our collective understanding of the drivers of economic mobility including new studies showing the importance of social connections. For the BFM 2024 event, we will brought together practitioners leveraging social connections to strengthen economic opportunity, well-being and resilience, and kick off a program to build the social capital field.
2024 Benjamin Franklin Medalist
Raj Chetty is the William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the Director of Opportunity Insights, which uses big data to study the science of economic opportunity: how we can give children from all backgrounds better chances of succeeding? Chetty’s work has been widely cited in academia, media outlets, and policy discussions in the United States and beyond.
Chetty received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003 and is one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard’s history. He has received numerous awards for his research, including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the John Bates Clark medal, given to the economist under 40 whose work is judged to have made the most significant contribution to the field, and Harvard’s George Ledlie prize, awarded for research that made the most valuable contribution to science, or in any way for the benefit of mankind.
Helping Make This Possible
Opportunity Insight's mission is to identify barriers to economic opportunity and develop scalable solutions that will empower people throughout the United States to rise out of poverty and achieve better life outcomes.
Based at Harvard University, our team of researchers and policy analysts work together to analyze new data and create a platform for local stakeholders to make more informed decisions.
The Schultz Family Foundation’s mission is to create greater opportunity, accessible to all. Our work is deeply rooted in the lives and values of our co-founders, Sheri and Howard Schultz, who believe talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. We seek to apply the lessons they have learned over the decades to seed innovations and scale solutions to help young people successfully navigate the transition to adulthood and positively impact the trajectory of their lives. We are investors in unleashing potential and unlocking opportunity, working in partnership with employers, entrepreneurs, non-profits, and governments that share our aspiration of enabling everyone to access the full promise of America.
SecondMuse Foundation is a nonprofit that advocates for a different approach for building inclusive and resilient societies and economies, which we refer to as relational wealth. It draws learning from the experiences of our partners, other organizations and communities around the world to advance the approach to a larger audience. The Foundation contributes to thought leadership, field building, and the creation of public goods on relational wealth. We seek to empower a community of practitioners and influence funders to better understand relational wealth and how it can be harnessed to benefit all people and the planet.
Thread harnesses the power of relationships to create a new social fabric of diverse individuals deeply engaged with young people facing the most significant opportunity and achievement gaps. Founded in Baltimore, Maryland, Thread matches every enrolled young person with an extended family of diverse, caring volunteers who act as extended family and provide tailored support like rides to school, weekend dinners or navigating transitions to adulthood. This customized support aims to increase outcomes such as high school graduation rates, post high school pathways identification and a stronger sense of connection for everyone in our community.