On June 7-10, 2015, The Opportunity Agenda conducted its sixth annual Communications Institute, focusing on an issue growing in national importance and relevance: Criminal Justice. In 2015, 17 Fellows dedicated themselves to learning and refining their communications skills and working with The Opportunity Agenda in a six-month residency program following the Institute. They then boldly pushed a new criminal justice narrative forward by speaking to local and national media to successfully achieve policy and culture change.

During the Communications Institute we worked with the Fellows on framing the criminal justice discourse in a way that tells a larger story, while allowing them to speak specifically to their own issues, such as racial profiling, the school-to-prison pipeline, and gender and sexuality concerns. Past Institutes have focused on immigration; home opportunity; and race, gender, and economic opportunity.

The 2015 Communications Institute was made possible, in part, by the generous contributions of Atlantic Philanthropies, the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Libra Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The JPB Foundation, and individual donors.

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Meet the 2015 Fellows