Craig Kielburger
Craig Kielburger co-founded Free The Children in 1995 at only 12 years of age. Today, he remains a passionate full-time volunteer for the organization, now an international charity and renowned educational partner that empowers youth to achieve their fullest potential as agents of change.
Free The Children delivers innovative programming to more than 4000 youth groups and hundreds of thousands of young people in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. As the world’s largest network of children helping children through education, the organization has worked in 45 countries and built more than 650 schools and school rooms in developing regions, providing education to more than 55,000 children every day.
Free The Children has a proven track record of success, having formed successful partnerships with top school boards and leading corporations—including Oprah’s Angel Network, KPMG, and Research In Motion.
Craig is also the co-founder of Me to We. An innovative social enterprise, Me to We provides people with better choices for a better world, including socially conscious and environmentally friendly clothes and accessories, as well as life-changing international volunteer trips, leadership training programs and materials, a speakers bureau, and books which address issues of positive social change. In addition, half of Me to We’s net profit is donated to Free The Children, while the other half is reinvested to grow the enterprise and its social mission.
Each year, both Craig and Marc Kielburger organize Free The Children’s We Day, the organization’s signature domestic event which reaches 90,000 students from 3,000 schools in person and more than 5.4 million through televised broadcasts. We Day now has the largest facebook following of any charitable cause in the world.
They share the stage, and their voices, with Nobel Peace Laureates, heads of state, celebrities, rock bands, actors and pop icons, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Former President Bill Clinton, Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sir Richard Branson and many more.
Along with his brother Marc, Craig writes Global Voices, a weekly column about the pressing issues of our time, syndicated in the Vancouver Sun, Halifax Chronicle Herald, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Winnipeg Free Press and Huffington Post and Huffington Post Canada online. Also, the Kielburgers are weekly Globe & Mail columnists for a weekly advice column “Ask the Kielburgers”.
Craig is also a New York Times bestselling author, who has written seven books. His latest, released in June 2011, is the children’s book Lessons from a Street Kid.
Craig has a degree in peace and conflict studies from the University of Toronto and is the youngest-ever graduate of the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA program. He has received ten honorary doctorates and degrees, The Roosevelt Freedom Medal, The World Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (often called the Children’s Nobel Prize) and is one of the youngest recipients of The Order of Canada. Craig’s work has been featured on multiple appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, 60 Minutes and The Today Show; and in People, Time and The Economist.
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Click here for Craig's French Speaking Video |
Topics of discussion
- THE WORLD NEEDS YOUR KID: HOW TO NURTURE CHILDREN WHO CARE AND CONTRIBUTE
- PUTTING OUR FAMILIES FIRST
- WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HIGH PERFORMING NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
- ME TO WE: HOW TO HELP EMPLOYEES FIND MEANING IN A MATERIAL WORLD
- ME TO WE: HOW ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE
Craig is ideal for
Corporate, Educators, Family, Student Leadership, College/University Students, Non-Profit
Book Craig Now!Testimonials
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"Craig Kielburger was extremely well received by our audience. He is a great speaker and even more a great person. Remarkable – I would highly recommend for future presentations."
- Brian Keegan, University of Saskatchewan
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"Craig was phenomenal. Please bring him back for future events. It´s great to have such an engaging speaker who really captivated the audience and was a great story teller. "
- 2012 CMA Business of Ideas Forum Delegate
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"Craig Kielburger´s presentation was terrific -- not only was it a fascinating and well-delivered story, but it was "on-theme" by talking about how some of his innovative ideas (i.e. social entrepreneurship, We Day) were brought to life."
- 2012 CMA Business of Ideas Forum Delegate
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"I have hosted Craig for special events at two separate occasions and he has in both cases been enormously successful, not just in educating, exciting and entertaining a group, but much more uniquely in inspiring a group to action. One of the audiences was the San Diego Chapter of YPO [Young Presidents' Organization], and this particularly discerning group rated Craig and his team our strongest event in the entire year."
- Michael Stone, Young Presidents' Organization, San Diego
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"To date, Craig has shared his moving and educational messages to our clients, field sales groups and employees on 14 separate occasions. Each time, Craig greatly exceeds our expectations and seldom have our events created the level of positive feedback and excitement that we have seen with these events. Perhaps, more importantly, at every event Craig has made himself available to spend time with each audience member who desired to speak to him after each presentation."
- Neil Taylor, Vice President, Marketing, Investors Group
Craig's speaking gallery
*to view larger versions, please click on the photo you wish you see.
Publications
The World Needs Your Kid
Everything you need to know about raising kids, lending a hand and changing the world.
Me To We
A manual, a manifesto and a movement.
Free The Children
The story that launched a movement.
Take Action
A vivid, hands-on guide to active citizenship.
Public Speaking Events
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Youth leading global change is the movement of our time. We Day is the manifestation of this movement. 
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Free The Children believes in a world where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as agents of change.
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Me to We is an innovative social enterprise that provides people with better choices for a better world.
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