Abel R. Cano is Founder and ED of The Arc of Change, a Boston-based training initiative focused on harnessing the power of community organizing practices as a transformative craft for leadership and social impact. Abel is Dominican-American, raised in Boston, Honolulu and Indianapolis. As a leadership trainer and coach, Abel’s passion is to ignite breakthroughs that empower a rising generation of social movement leaders.

Encountering the powerful force of family and faith sparked Abel’s desire to be part of something bigger than himself. In Abel’s years of leading trainings around the world, he has learned our capacity to achieve change is limitless when we stand united.

Abel first began organizing against youth violence in high school. He went on to become a first generation college graduate at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he led the largest Latinx student organization on campus, Casa Latina. After graduating, Abel joined the Obama Campaign as a staff Field Organizer for Greater Boston and statewide constituency groups in 2012. He went on to lead campaigns to successfully elect first time candidates of color to political office in Massachusetts as a Field Director.

After years of organizing, Abel Cano found himself teaching graduate courses on leadership alongside legendary organizer Marshall Ganz at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Over the past 10 years, Abel has organized in marginalized communities, co-founded a thriving arts nonprofit, served as Field Director on an electoral campaigns, trained and coached 1000’s of progressive leaders, and led 100’s of immersive workshops with the world’s leading universities and nonprofit organizations.