John Bridgeland is Executive Chairman of the Office of American Possibilities, a civic moonshot factory that taps the entrepreneurial talent of Americans to solve public challenges together across divides. In that capacity, he is Co-Founder of a dozen initiatives, including Founder and CEO of More Perfect, a bipartisan alliance of 37 Presidential Centers and more than 100 partners working together to advance 5 foundational Democracy Goals: 1) Civic Learning; 2) National Service & Volunteering; 3) Bridging Divides; 4) Trusted Elections & Effective Governance; and 5) Access to Trusted News & Information. More Perfect has also joined together with philanthropy, corporations and nonprofits to launch a 10-year campaign to focus on America’s capabilities, not its brokenness, and provide corporations, nonprofits and individual Americans opportunities to envision and advance American renewal. America’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026 is a launchpad for this ten year effort through the 250th of the U.S. Constitution in 2037.

Bridgeland is also Founding CEO and Vice Chairman of Malaria No More launched at the White House Summit on Malaria he co-led. Since the beginning of the effort, more than 14 million lives have been saved from malaria. He has been a leader for 20 years on the high school dropout challenge, with his report The Silent Epidemic generating a TIME Cover Story, two Oprah Shows, and other coverage, the development of a civic marshal plan to address it, and his co-leadership of the Grad Nation campaign with General Colin Powell. His work was the subject of the lead cover story in the August 2024 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Graduation rates have climbed from 71 percent in 2001 to 86.5 percent in 2020, translating into over 5 million more students graduating rather than dropping out.  

In 2010, President Obama appointed Bridgeland to the White House Council for Community Solutions. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Bridgeland to serve as the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and Assistant to the President and first Director of the Freedom Corps to coordinate policy on international, national, community, and faith-based service in the aftermath of 9/11.  Bridgeland graduated with honors in government from Harvard University, where he played on the Varsity Tennis Team; studied at the College of Europe and Université Libre de Bruxelles as a Rotary International Fellow; and received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Bridgeland has honorary degrees and has delivered the commencement address at half a dozen colleges, including the College of William and Mary and Johns Hopkins University.  

He lives with his wife in McLean, Virginia, and has three children.