In 2011, the Global Shapers Community was created with the mission of empowering young people, amplifying their voices around the world and enabling them to self-organize to implement projects for their local communities.
It is vital that young people are represented in important global issues; they are key stakeholders and should be central to solution-building, policy-making and effecting lasting change.
This global community of young change-makers, aged between 18 and 30, is taking action to improve the state of the world, one local community at a time. Global Shapers are progressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, that serve as a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by 2030.
Now, more than ever, we need their energy and vision to tackle the formidable, but not insurmountable, challenges ahead.
To mark this milestone, we teamed up with Accenture, Project Everyone and Salesforce to share our community's impact with the world.
The Decade of Impact report reveals how the Global Shapers Community has positively affected its members, and in turn, how Global Shapers have changed the world.
In ten years, this community of change-makers has:
- Grown to more than 14,000 Global Shapers in 455 city-based hubs across 147 countries
- Reached or mobilized over 11 million and directly benefited almost 2 million through locally-led projects since 2017
- Volunteered 46,000 working days, changed 37 policies and advanced all 17 Global Goals worldwide
For the decade ahead, Global Shapers will continue to drive dialogue, action and change under six new impact areas:
- Protect the planet: reduce emissions, fight drought, preserve biodiversity, conserve nature, promote sustainable consumption and more.
- Reskill for the future: provide all people with quality education, skills and jobs to ensure no one is left behind, along with promoting new standards of work, digital literacy, online safety and more.
- Strengthen civic engagement: empower minority leadership, mobilize citizen voting, inspire youth to run for politics and ensure representation in decision-making and solution-building at all levels of society.
- Create inclusive communities: advocate for human rights and disrupt harmful stereotypes on gender, race, sexual orientation, disability and more.
- Improve health and well-being: achieve health equality, ensure access to health services, address the social determinants of health, advance youth mental health support and respond to pandemics.
- Deliver basic needs: support vulnerable communities, respond to local disasters, take humanitarian action, end hunger, fight extreme poverty and more.