Our special guest is Mike Tenbusch, author of the Jonathan Effect, a book about the power of the church and its people to help schools and their students win the battle against poverty. Mike is the CEO of Uncommon Solutions, LLC, a consulting firm helping urban schools, churches, and impact organizations create strategies to improve conditions and outcomes for kids. Born and raised in Detroit, he has had a life-long calling to make Detroit a better place to be a kid and to raise a family, and he served as chief impact officer for United Way in Southeastern Michigan as part of his twenty years of leading change in the city.

A graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, Mike co-founded Think Detroit (now Detroit PAL), an organization that now serves 14,000 children each year. He also served on the Board for Detroit Public Schools, helped a charter school district graduate more than ninety percent of its first high school class, and created a plan and led the effort to turnaround the city’s most challenged high schools. Named one of Crain’s 40 under 40 in 2008, he launched a training center for young people in partnership with best-selling author, Mitch Albom.