Building A Kinder World Through Youth Leadership.
At Riley's Way, we believe kindness is not a soft skill. It is the most essential and most underestimated quality in leadership, and the one our world most urgently needs.
The most pressing challenge in leadership development today is not a shortage of ambition. It is a shortage of meaningful connection. Young people need the spaces, skills, and networks to work across difference, build trust, and turn their values into collective action. The leaders of tomorrow are being shaped right now. Riley’s Way provides the scaffolding and support to catalyze their leadership journey and ground them in kindness, purpose, and community.
We provide young people, ages 13–23, with leadership programming, direct funding, and community, meeting them where they are and supporting them as they grow. We don't just fund ideas. We invest in people.
Riley's Way Foundation was established by Mackenzie and Ian Sandler in 2014 to honor the memory of their nine-year-old daughter, Riley Hannah Sandler. Learn more
To empower young leaders with the training, funding, and lifelong community to lead with kindness and create lasting social change.
OUR MISSION
We envision a future where kindness and empathy drive leadership at every level; shaping policy, guiding business, transforming education, and strengthening communities. In this future, all young people, regardless of background, have access to the tools and networks they need to build a better world.
OUR VISION
Kindness
Kindness is an active choice and the intentional practice of compassion, respect, extending oneself, and showing genuine care for others.
OUR VALUES
Empathy
Empathy is the willingness to see, feel, and learn beyond your own lived experiences. It requires actively listening and learning from others.
Community
A community values and celebrates everyone's unique voices and experiences. It provides a space that fosters belonging, where diverse voices are heard and amplified, intersectional identities are honored, and authentic relationships and meaningful friendships are cultivated.
Youth Leadership
Young people are at the forefront of decision-making, creating change, mobilizing their peers, and contributing innovative solutions to pressing issues they care about most, with adult allyship and support from others.
OUR KIND LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY
The world doesn't just need more leaders. It needs kind ones.
Leading with Kindness is a bold commitment to put empathy, purpose, and community at the heart of everything we do. It is a redefinition of what leadership can be — expanding the focus from the what to the how.
Kind leaders don't just manage — they ignite. They foster high-performing teams, spark innovation, and build communities that thrive through belonging. Kindness is a catalyst. It creates a ripple effect where empathy becomes the engine for progress.
Kind leaders create kind leaders. By leading with authenticity, valuing diverse voices, and working collaboratively, we don't just improve what we do — we create a legacy of lasting, positive change.
Kind Leadership means:
Listening with empathy and acting with compassion
Building communities where every voice is heard and valued
Leading with courage, authenticity, and resilience
Inspiring others through example, not authority
Creating ripple effects that outlast any single project or program
We believe that when young people are given the tools, confidence, and community to lead this way, they carry these values into careers in business, policy, education, STEM, the arts, and beyond.
“When you get to a position of leadership, the way you're actually judged isn't as an individual contributor, it's what does your team does. And these are the skills and these are the tools that are going to become invaluable, especially in a world driven by increasingly by AI. So you're going to come up with a world where AI is going to win the IQ test on just about everything. What's left is people who truly excel in EQ. Those who can understand how to make people feel comfortable, how they can understand how to bring people into a room, bring them along.”
Ian Sandler, co-founder of Riley’s Way
Explore the programs where young leaders learn to lead with kindness, launch their ideas, and build a more connected world.
See Kind Leadership In Action