"I'm extremely proud of my time at the Leadership Institute,” said Young Conservatives Coalition President Chris Malagisi, also an adjunct professor at American University.  “It might be cliché, but Morton Blackwell and the Leadership Institute (LI) changed my life.  In the past decade, I have regularly interacted with LI staff both personally and professionally.”

Chris is president of the Young Conservatives Coalition (YCC), a Washington, D.C.-based young professionals’ leadership, educational, and networking organization. 

In Tuesday's all-staff meeting, Leadership Institute President Morton Blackwell announced LI's Employee of the Quarter award recipient.

"Aynsley Harrison has helped LI assist hundreds of conservative job seekers this year alone," LI President Morton Blackwell said.

"She put together a job fair at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that served more than 400 job seekers with more recruiters and job openings than previous years," he continued.

Classy fashionista Gabrielle Jackson shows beauty even in politics. “I can still remember my first Leadership Institute training as a 15-year-old in California,” Founder and President of The Millennial Solution Gabrielle Jackson, now 25, said. “My mom drove me two hours to Stanford University from my hometown in Sacramento after hearing about the Youth Leadership School training program.”

“Even at that age, I knew that politics was how I wanted to make the world a better place and I was hungry for training to use my passion and excitement to advance the conservative movement,” she said. Now, Gabrielle works in the Washington, D.C. area as the director of external partnerships at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics.

“Get off your butt and do something! Stop complaining about the size of government and be proactive about our problems. We can't afford to just sit around and talk philosophy with each other. If you want to make a change, stop reading and start doing,” Leadership Institute graduate Brandon Cestrone who is the northeast regional director for Young Americans for Liberty said.

“At some point books only become a crutch,” he continued. “People would rather read political theory than learn practical application. Don't make this mistake. Take what you learn and put it to action. That's where the magic happens.” 

Brandon Cestrone has made significant contributions to advancing liberty through youth activism. He’s helped start 50 college Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) chapters at universities stretching from West Virginia all the way to Maine. Read on to learn more about the YAL conventions in 12 states.