American Express NGen Leadership Award

The American Express NGen Leadership Award honors an accomplished charitable community leader age 40 or under who has demonstrated significant progress in addressing society’s critical needs.

For over 10 years, Independent Sector has presented this prestigious award to one emerging leader whose creative and collaborative leadership is helping to solve an intractable community challenge. We’re pleased to present the 2021 award recipient – Maria Yuan, Founder and CEO of IssueVoter.

Created and launched by Maria, IssueVoter is an online platform where individuals can become informed on key issues, make their voices heard, and track their representatives’ voting records. IssueVoter is a nonpartisan resource that makes civic engagement accessible.

In addition to supporting the American Express NGen Leadership Award since 2010, American Express has also partnered with Independent Sector to offer the NGen Fellows Program, part of the American Express Leadership Academy that provides training, networking opportunities, and skills-building resources to social purpose leaders.

Maria, along with the other American Express NGen Award finalists, will be featured in the program during the virtual Upswell Summit, October 20-22.

Past Recipients