(Picture from Duke University)

A good article at Fast Company on Pittsburgh's Bill Strickland: Genius at Work.

He mastered the art of social entrepreneurship, applying his potter's hands to reshape the business of social change. As a result, the people who now work with him and come to his programs at the Manchester Craftsmen's guild (MCG) and at the Bidwell Training Center Inc. (BTC) - his Pittsburgh-based organizations for urban change - will tell you that the day Bill Strickland walked into that ceramics classroom was the day that he began reinventing this country's approach to social entrepreneurship.

For nearly three decades, Strickland has worked at his craft back in the same Pittsburgh neighborhood he grew up in - creating a model for turning people with dead-end lives into productive workers. And it's working.

In the Manchester neighborhood of Pittsburgh's North Side, Strickland has forged a series of programs to bring new life to the community. At one end of the lifeline is the MCG, which aims to rescue at-risk school kids by using the arts to teach them life skills. At the other end is the BTC, an innovative partnership with local companies to train displaced adults for real work in real jobs. Since their inception, the two programs have each grown into more than $3 million-a-year operations, with a combined staff of 110 people. Strickland serves as president and CEO, the linchpin that holds all of the parts together.

More on Strickland's work can be found at the Community Arts Network, the Pittsburgh Social Enterprise Accelerator, and the Washington Post.