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Join us at the Ideas We Should Steal Festival

The Philadelphia Citizen’s Ideas We Should Steal Festival® presented by Comcast NBCUniversal returns for its eighth year on November 13 and 14 and features our Inaugural Ideas We Should Scale Showcase. We are once again bringing changemakers and innovators to our problem-solving table, inspiring change and basking in hope.

Find all the details and pick up tickets for the festival here!

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Sharpen your nonprofit leadership skills

Register for Mapping Your Impact: Evaluation Planning Workshop Series & Coaching with Claire Robertson-Kraft, founder and executive director of ImpactED.

Let’s Scale These Ideas

Meet the three groups that will pitch their ideas to funders and supporters at the first-ever Ideas We Should Scale Showcase at the Linc on November 13

Let’s Scale These Ideas

Meet the three groups that will pitch their ideas to funders and supporters at the first-ever Ideas We Should Scale Showcase at the Linc on November 13

BY Jessica Blatt Press

Oct. 02, 2025

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Bike Explorers wants to teach every Philadelphia kid to ride a bike, safely.

The Merchant’s Fund aims to help more small businesses thrive in our city.

Philly Truce Foundation hopes to empower an army of Black men to transform their communities into safer places for all (join them on October 26 for their Brotherly Action 5k Walk).

All three nonprofits do important, impactful work in the city — and now, all three are ready to scale their efforts, as presenters at The Citizen’s first ever Ideas We Should Scale Showcase on November 13. They were chosen from among several dozen entrants in our call for submissions from nonprofits and benefit corporations with budgets under $2 million.

At the event, held at Lincoln Financial Field as the kickoff to our 9th annual Ideas We Should Steal Festival presented by Comcast NBCUniversal, the groups will pitch a room full of funders and supporters about the impact they could have with additional funding to scale their work. To be clear, the groups will not be in competition with one another — rather, we hope to see all of their ideas supported, funded, and pushed forward. Each presenter will also receive an honorarium of $1,666, courtesy of Visit Philadelphia.

They say “game knows game,” and this year’s winners were selected by a panel of judges with their finger on the pulse of what our city really needs, and how to measure impact: Claire Robertson-Kraft, founder and executive director of ImpactED at the University of Pennsylvania; Michelle Histand, executive director of M. Night Shyamalan Foundation; Kimberly McGlonn, author, entrepreneur and vice president of social impact at Fitler Club; Michael Pearson, president/CEO of Public Health Management Corporation; and Richard Binswanger, partner at Inlocalyst.

The judges considered videos submitted by the organizations, their record of success, the need for their work and votes from the public.

At the event, Histand will hold a conversation with Shyamalan Foundation Co-founder Bhavna Shyamalan about what they look for when investing in organizations, and the impact their work has had (with a possible appearance by M. Night too!).

We are excited to help unlock the potential of each of these extraordinary organizations, and hope you will join us to learn how, and why, we can and should move their missions forward.

See more about the groups in their videos:

 

JOIN US FOR IDEAS WE SHOULD STEAL FESTIVAL 2025

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2025 Ideas We Should Steal Festival
By The Philadelphia Citizen Staff

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