Sarah Lockridge-Steckel

2022 – Sarah Lockridge-Steckel is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Collective Blueprint in Memphis, Tennessee. The Collective Blueprint strives to eliminate barriers and create new avenues towards economic self-sufficiency for the 45,000 youth out of school and work in Memphis. Her passion is embedded in the belief that all youth deserve access to meaningful opportunities that lead to social mobility.

The Collective Blueprint has had tremendous successes in its first few years of operation. The organization has reached hundreds of young adults. In the pilot class, two-thirds of thoseyoung adults were certified in in-demand career fields, including IT, healthcare and the skilled trades and 75% were working upon program completion. The Collective Blueprint has attracted both local and national support, including over $5M in funding. As the Collective Blueprint moves into its fourth year, Sarah is leading a compelling strategy to provide direct support to young adults and to change the educational and career systems in Memphis to lead to more opportunity.

Ms. Lockridge-Steckel was raised in Detroit, Michigan. Her family hails from Smithville, Mississippi. She grew up in the most polluted zip code in Michigan, and her experiences growing up exposed her firsthand to racial and economic disparities. She vowed to create a world that was more equitable for future generations of children. Sarah came to Memphis in 2011 to work with Youth Villages, a national child welfare organization that supports families in the child welfare and mental health systems in over 20 states. At Youth Villages, she supported the organization’s leadership team in expanding its services to other states and building strategies to reform child welfare systems across the country. She also worked as an independent consultant, and helped launch the $20M Memphis Music Initiative, which provides music education and opportunities to youth across Memphis.

Prior to joining Youth Villages, Sarah was a Senior Associate Consultant at The Bridgespan Group, which specializes in strategic solutions for mission-driven organizations. She is currently on the board of KIPP Memphis and the Memphis Music Initiative. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Harvard University, where she was President of the Black Students Association. In May 2016, she received her MBA from the Yale School of Management, with a focus on nonprofit management and urban poverty. In 2016, Sarah was a keynote at Harvard’s Public Interest Conference and in 2019, she was selected as the Memphis Business Journal’s 40 under 40. In her spare time, she enjoys kickboxing, creating ceramics and traveling.

2008 – Sarah Lockridge-Steckel, a 21-year old Harvard College junior, was raised in Detroit, MI. She attended high school at Cranbrook Kingswood Schools in Bloomfield Hills, MI. While attending Cranbrook, Sarah was involved in a number of public service activities. As student government president, Sarah organized class service projects designed to engage her class in issues affecting the surrounding areas. Through witnessing the disparities between her high school and public education in Detroit, Sarah became committed to social justice and working with youth to address the vast inequities she observed.

As a junior, Sarah has remained committed to public service throughout her years at Harvard. As a volunteer for the service organization Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), Sarah has volunteered with the Head Start readers program. During the summer of 2007, she also served as co-director of the Franklin I-O Summer Program. The program provides educational enrichment to 80 campers, ages 6-12 over seven weeks during the summer. As Co-Director of the program, Sarah was responsible for overseeing curriculum development, planning program field trips and running the day-to-day program operations. Her experiences in this program solidified her commitment to addressing the issues within lower income communities. She also continued her service work by planning and co-leading a service trip down to Mississippi, focused on tutoring youth and learning more about the Civil Rights Movement. 

Outside of PBHA, Sarah devotes much of her time to the Black Students Association (BSA). She has served on the board of the organization for all three of her years at Harvard, and currently serves as president of the organization. Sarah’s goal has been to increase the political activism amongst the black community at Harvard. In addition to overseeing social and cultural programming for the 200 person organization, Sarah has also prioritized the development of the organization’s community service program and political action initiatives. During the fall of 2007, Sarah met with and urged Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to develop more programs and increase funding to prevent youth violence in minority Boston communities. Prior to meeting with Governor Patrick, the BSA held an evening candlelight vigil in Roxbury to draw attention to youth violence in the area and to demand a sound response from the governor’s office. 

Sarah hopes to use her experiences in college and high school to begin a career in public service. She is majoring in sociology with a secondary degree in statistics. One of her primary career goals is to develop strategies to bridge the gap between the non-profit and for-profit sectors. She also hopes to continue her work in youth development.