Vincent Pan

1997

Vincent Pan

Heads Up

http://www.headsup-dc.org

Washington D.C., United States

Education & Youth Leadership

The Bold Idea:

Heads Up is a non-profit organization that provides rigorous after-school and summer programs for elementary school children in the D.C. area’s most underserved neighborhoods. Through its intensive, literacy-based program, children gain the skills they need to succeed in school and later in life. By enlisting college students as classroom tutors, Heads Up inspires a new generation of leaders committed to strengthening their communities. With this unique approach of partnering college students with elementary school kids, Heads Up is changing lives, two at a time.

Biography:

Vincent Pan, Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), is a leading progressive voice on issues of racial justice and social change. Founded in 1969 and based in San Francisco, CAA has advocated on a range of pressing social justice issues including language access, immigrant rights, affirmative action, educational equity, and marriage equality. CAA also anchors Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality (AACRE), a statewide legislative and budget advocacy project conducted in partnership with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California and the Asian Law Caucus.

Prior to joining CAA, Pan worked with the William J. Clinton Foundation in Beijing to start and expand HIV/AIDS treatment and care programs in China. Before that, Pan co-founded and served as Executive Director of Heads Up, a community-based organization that runs education and enrichment programs for low-income children in Washington, D.C.

Pan holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College, and has been a Fellow with the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University, the Echoing Green Foundation, and the Stride Rite Foundation. He has won the Do Something Brick Award for community leadership, the Shayne Award for nonprofit leadership, and been recognized by the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and A. Magazine.