Mission and Program - Atlas Corps

About Us

Atlas Corps has been empowering and growing social change leaders around the globe since 2006. Profiled as a “best practice” in international exchange by the Brookings Institution and featured in the Washington Post as a model social entrepreneurship program.

Our Mission

Atlas Corps was founded in 2006 in response to the reality that while talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. The mission of Atlas Corps is to address critical social issues by developing leaders and strengthening organizations through training programs and a global alumni community of skilled social change professionals.

Our Model

Atlas Corps offers two flagship programs: the Virtual Leadership Institute and the Atlas Corps Fellowship.

The Virtual Leadership Institute is an online learning community that provides professional development to empower social change advocates. The program features speakers, interactive workshops, self-guided assignments, and community-building activities. A wide range of materials, frameworks, and tools are provided throughout the course to assist Fellows in their continued professional development, and implementation of projects within their local communities.

The Atlas Corps Fellowships matches selected, young professionals from developing and transition countries for work-training experiences with the U.S. based organizations. Atlas Corps handles visa, and travel arrangements and prepares fellows through virtual leadership training and U.S. cultural immersion programs. Host organizations, in return, can address short-term support needs, accelerate their social impact initiatives, expand on their DEI goals, enrich their team’s cultural immersion, and gain more global perspectives.

DEI Vision Statement

Atlas Corps is a global organization and community that holds racial equity, diversity, and inclusion as inherent core values to our work. While our community is inherently diverse, we understand that focused and intentional action is required to ensure our commitment is reflected in everything we do. We also recognize that this process is a marathon and not a sprint. Our long-range intention is to expand our efforts across our Community in a phased approach. We look forward to the growth ahead and keeping our Community updated on our annual progress. Thank you for your partnership and support as we commit to the sustained marathon of ingraining Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion into every aspect of our work.

Opportunity Areas

Commitment to a Cause Greater Than Self: We value the commitment to a cause greater than yourself. Our community is committed to making a better world for the future, playing a role to lead social impact locally and globally. Each of us plays a critical role in advancing our shared mission, but no one role, task or person is more important than any other, or our mission.
Diversity & Inclusion: We value diversity and inclusion. Diverse perspectives foster the development of better ideas and more effective solutions for tackling social challenges, and inclusion actively engages and includes diverse voices and perspectives.
Global Collaboration: We value global leaders who create social change with critical knowledge and collaboration. We believe sustainable change requires the humility and ability to collaborate across borders. The challenges of the world are too great to face alone, but with a community of inspired change leaders, there is nothing we cannot tackle together.