About
Craig Kielburger
Co-Founder, Fulfilled Life
Social Entrepreneur
New York Times Bestselling Author
Movement Builder
It Started With
One Story
Craig Kielburger was 12 years old when he read about Iqbal Masih, a boy his own age who had escaped child labor and was murdered after speaking out against it.
Craig could have turned the page.
Instead, he did something about it.
He gathered a small group of classmates and founded Free The Children, beginning what would become more than three decades of building organizations, movements and initiatives around the world.
As a teenager, Craig appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where Oprah Winfrey spontaneously pledged to help build 100 schools and provided support that helped the fledgling organization grow.
What began with a handful of young people would eventually reach across continents.
One Person Can Start Something
It Takes a Movement to Carry It Forward
Over the decades that followed, Craig had a front-row seat to a question that would come to define much of his life's work:
What makes people believe in an idea, commit to it and carry it forward?
The international programs he helped build empowered 200,000 students through education, supported 30,000 women through alternative income initiatives and provided more than one million people across Africa, Asia and Latin America with access to healthcare and clean water.
His live events brought 1.5 million young people into stadiums and arenas, with attendees earning their way in through more than 40 million hours of service. Those stages brought together figures ranging from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mikhail Gorbachev to Jane Goodall, Selena Gomez and Jennifer Lopez.
Again and again, Craig saw the same pattern:
People Want to Belong to Something Larger Than Themselves.
For more than 30 years, Craig has studied movement building from the inside, not simply as an observer, but as a practitioner.
His work has crossed philanthropy, business, education and civic life, exploring how attention becomes belief, belief becomes commitment and commitment becomes action at a scale no individual leader can personally sustain.
Today, Craig co-leads Legacy+, a foundry of strategists, designers, creators, storytellers and innovators that helps companies, foundations and individuals turn purpose into movements and legacy projects. His current site describes Legacy+ as the continuation of this movement-building work.
Over the course of his career, he has worked with global organizations including Microsoft, Unilever, Walgreens and Allstate, and supported individuals including Oprah Winfrey, Sir Richard Branson, Sheryl Sandberg, Natalie Portman and Malala Yousafzai in bringing purpose-driven projects to life.
His work today continues to explore why some ideas become movements, why others fail and what it takes to build something people genuinely want to belong to.
Movement Building Became a
Life’s Work
Service Changed the Way Craig Thought About Fulfillment
Decades spent building movements also taught Craig something more personal.
The people who gave the most were not necessarily losing something by giving.
Often, they were gaining something.
Connection. Community. Meaning. Belonging. Purpose.
That observation became central to Craig's understanding of a fulfilled life:
Fulfillment Is Not Simply Something We Find.
It Is Something We Build.
Through connection
Through contribution.
Through service to others.
For Craig, service is not simply something people do after achieving success. It is one of the ways people reconnect their success to something larger than themselves.
And that is where Craig's work in movement building and Fulfilled Life meet.
Belonging Creates Fulfillment
Movement Building Creates Something Worth Belonging To
One is the experience of the participant.
The other is the craft of the builder.
Together, they have shaped Craig's understanding of how people build lives rich
in connection, contribution and meaning.
From Legacy to Fulfilled Living
Craig's exploration of these ideas also led to What Is My Legacy?: Realizing a New Dream of Connection, Love, and Fulfillment, written with Marc Kielburger, Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King.
The book explores a different understanding of legacy. Not simply what someone leaves behind, but how they live, connect and contribute now. It draws on neuroscience, psychology, epigenetics and lived experience to introduce a framework the authors call “Living Legacy.”
Craig also co-hosts the My Legacy podcast and syndicated radio show, stepping inside the lives of extraordinary people to explore the relationships, experiences and choices that shape who they become.
That work continues through Fulfilled Life, where the question becomes even more personal.
What Makes a Life Feel Truly Fulfilling?
There is no universal answer.
For some, it begins with health.
For others, family, relationships, contribution, learning, exploration or purpose.
Fulfilled Life brings those dimensions together around one person: you.
A Life of Service, Learning and Contribution
Craig serves as Chancellor of Legacy College in Kenya, which provides educational programs for Kenyan learners alongside international continuing education opportunities taught by global thought leaders.
He is also co-founder of the Dalai Lama Center, which works to cultivate compassion, resilience and inner peace through social and emotional learning.
A New York Times bestselling author, Craig has written numerous books exploring service, purpose and social impact. He holds 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. His contributions to education and human rights have been recognized with honorary doctorates and degrees.
Craig has also been recognized with the Order of Canada, the Nelson Mandela Freedom Medal and the World Children's Prize.
But his work has never been defined by credentials alone.
It has been shaped by three decades of putting ideas into practice, watching what works, learning from what doesn't and testing what creates real connection in the lives of real people.
The Fulfilled Life, Field-Tested
Across more than three decades, Craig has seen the same pattern again and again:
People are willing to give their time, energy and effort when they feel they belong to something larger than themselves.
That is where movement building, service and Fulfilled Life come together.
For Craig, service is not simply one part of a fulfilled life.