Charles Mitchell

Charles has helped build and scale many nonprofits advancing the education revolution and civil rights. Currently, he is CEO of the Open Discourse Coalition, which he co-founded with fellow Bucknell University alumni Denise Chaykun, Allison Kasic, and Ken Langone, and host of the Open Discourse Podcast. He is also chairman of the board of Black Pastors United for Education, the David & Laura Thayer Visiting Fellow at the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy, a senior fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation, a senior advisor to Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, a visiting senior fellow for leadership development at the State Policy Network, co-founder of Threefold Schoolhouse: An Acton Academy, and an elder in his family’s church.

Previously, Charles served for 15 years in executive roles at the Commonwealth Foundation, and concurrently served as founding president of a public interest law firm representing mistreated workers and founding chairman of a First Amendment watchdog group. The State Policy Network recognized his leadership in these areas with its two highest honors, the Joseph Overton and Thomas Roe Awards. He entered into his work in civil society as a campus activist and editor in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and cut his teeth professionally as a staffer at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, as an intern at the Heritage Foundation, and as a participant in the Claremont Institute’s Publius Fellowship and Stand Together’s Koch Associate Program.

Charles’s most important earthly affiliation is as husband to Charissa and father of their four daughters. He and his family live just off the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania.