Alumni Spotlight: Tommy Loper, Aspen Institute

Tommy Loper is a Vice-President for Enterprise Development at the Aspen Institute, an international organization dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing challenges. The Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership sat down with Tommy to discuss his role as a convener of leaders and his time in the Nonprofit Management Executive Program.

CPNL: Tell me a little about yourself—what drew you to your current role at the Aspen Institute, and to nonprofit work more generally?

Tommy Loper: Thanks for inviting me to chat with you! So I grew up as a Star Trek kid, and I’m very much still into Star Trek and sci-fi. And what I love about that is the portrayal of a better humanity—a more mature humanity, where we have greater prosperity, inclusion and futures to live in. And so as I was growing up, and through my studies and living abroad, I was able to develop more of a global mindset. I learned how to bring people together. I’ve always been solutions oriented, and what attracted me to Aspen was very much those same things.

Aspen Institute has a global presence. We work with people in countries all around the world. We aspire to bring people together across difference and help people to empathize and better understand one another. And we take non-partisan approaches to developing solutions that can benefit as many people as possible. And so it was really the alignment in terms of my own personal beliefs and mission with the organization itself that made me feel like I was helping to build that better future and being of use to humanity. It’s been a great experience.

CPNL: You mentioned global engagement. Much of your work centers around bringing together folks from across the world to exchange and develop ideas. How does this “network of networks” work promote your broader mission of creating a more just and free world?

Tommy Loper: Network of networks, and networks in general, are about people being in relationship with one another. We believe at the Aspen Institute, and I do, too, that relationships are vehicles for positive change, and that’s how you sustain change over time. And so what the networks effort is compelled by is for greater human dignity, human prosperity, human wisdom, and interconnectedness.

We try to bring people together from all different backgrounds, all different viewpoints, positions, and life experiences, so that as we’re looking at different issues or topics or challenges, we attempt to be as inclusive of as many human experiences and perspectives as possible. When people come together, there’s a collective genius that forms that can develop new solutions and approaches that otherwise might not exist.

There’s this quote that has really compelled me over the years. It’s by Margaret Mead, and it’s “never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.” I think network of networks really embraces the notion that other people are not going to solve our challenges. It’s up to us, and so how do we come together in the most productive manner to do so.

CPNL: So you touched on it a bit in your previous answer, but I was wondering if you could expand on how diversity informs your work at Aspen.

Tommy Loper: Absolutely. I’ve been with the Aspen Institute for 16 years, and early in my career with Aspen, I was in a seminar where somebody quoted a line by Erasmus, and it’s “nothing human is alien.” And that line has really stuck with me, and it’s become very much how I see the world and also how I see myself in my own growth and development as a person. And so I think at the core of diversity is this need to celebrate our differences and what makes us each unique, and also appreciate that each of these differences, each of these elements of uniqueness, is part of human expression, and we are all part of the same human tapestry.

And so how do we learn to weave ourselves together, to really embrace and love what makes us each different? At Aspen, our work is to bring people together around difference. So my role as a convener is to help people show up in the most authentic way that they can and learn to be in relationship and deeper understanding, trust, and humility with others who might be very different from them. Our work is to not dehumanize or reduce people to just one label, but to really show the complexity of the human experience and how we can learn to love what makes us such a beautiful species.

CPNL: Moving on to the Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program—what motivated you to enroll in the program, and what are some key takeaways from your time there?

Tommy Loper: When I joined Aspen Institute, I didn’t know much about the nonprofit sector, and I entered the Institute after an early career at two different for-profit startup companies. I think in American culture, we learn a lot about corporations and business and government, but we don’t learn much about the nonprofit history and the role that nonprofits and associations have had throughout the development of the United States and elsewhere around the world, and I really wanted to understand that context. I wanted to understand how I was fitting in, and how this organization fit into a broader society. And the program really helped me to understand the historical, current, and future of the nonprofit space.

So it was especially valuable as I look to show up with my own leadership, finding the best ways I can contribute to the nonprofit and social impact world. And the program really helped to connect me with terrific people who had very different experiences as well, and the facilitation by Kathy and Luisa and others really gave me the confidence, knowledge, practice, and relationships to figure out how to have the most significant impact in my own leadership.

CPNL: Since leaving the Certificate Program, what work have you done that you’re most proud of?

Tommy Loper: Since leaving the program one of the ways that I’ve tried to step up is to get involved in board work with other nonprofit organizations, and that’s been a great extension of my work and career. I’ve been able to work with Friends of New Orleans, which was a community nonprofit in Louisiana. I’ve also been invited to join the board of the Moonshot Platform, which focuses on global youth entrepreneurs around the world. There’s another nonprofit that has really aligned to my interest and passion which is called Space for Humanity which aims to democratize access to space and also to broaden the representation of who goes into space. We are working to send people into space who have never had others from their country or their generation be in space. And I think that’s really important to see people like ourselves enter into space that have historically never had access. Personally, I’m a gay man, and one of the things I keep advocating for is for us to launch an openly gay man into space. It’s never happened before, and we’re hoping to make it happen.

CPNL: What advice would you give to other professionals who are considering participating in the certificate program?

Tommy Loper: I think for any person who is considering this program, I would absolutely encourage them to enter into it. For me, I operate and lead best when I understand my context better, and I think this program does an exceptional job at helping people to understand their context, both within the nonprofit sector, but also social impact space in general, and how we show up within our organizations, too. And so I think the contextualization that this program helps people to understand is super important to developing more effective leadership in each of us.