Oren Slozberg is a leader in polycrisis and systems thinking, working at the intersection of personal and community healing and resilience. As executive director at Commonweal since 2013, he has focused on fostering the expansion of Commonweal's capacity and reach, meeting emerging needs for new kinds of work and programs in today's changing world and the polycrisis. Under Oren's leadership—and working closely with Founder Michael Lerner—Commonweal has grown into a community that welcomes and supports 30 different change-making programs that work to heal people and the earth. Celebrating 50 years of service in 2026, Commonweal supports resilience through work in healing, the arts, science, youth, and the polycrisis.
Oren co-founded Commonweal's Healing Circles Global program—now a global movement with circles across the world that holds space for healing. He helps guide Commonweal's Retreat Center Collaboration, broadening connection and belonging to nature-based retreat experiences. He helped bring the Power of Hope youth camp and the Fall Gathering to Commonweal, offering resilience and community building through nature and the arts. He works with leaders in Commonweal's OMEGA program to bring new thinking to the critical work of resilience during the polycrisis and our changing times.
Prior to Commonweal, Oren was a senior program developer in the fields of education, youth development, and the arts—an experienced practitioner working with young people in the Bay Area. In the early 1990s, he was the first program director at LYRIC, a youth center in San Francisco focusing on HIV prevention and student rights. In 1999, he worked as a field researcher for the Community Network for Youth Development, centering on youth development outcomes with foundations and youth organization executives. In 2002, Oren designed the program and served as Executive Director when the SF LGBT Community Center opened its building on Market Street in San Francisco. Following the community center, Oren developed the program for the California Endowment's new conference center for health providers in downtown Los Angeles.
In 2003, Oren studied Aesthetic Development with Dr. Abigail Housen and trained in Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a methodology developed in collaboration between Harvard Education School and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This research-based arts education program stimulates students' critical and listening thinking skills, as well as a deep passion for art. After implementing VTS in more than half the elementary schools in San Francisco Unified School District, in 2006 Oren became Executive Director of Visual Understanding in Education (VUE), the national organization that implements VTS in the United States and abroad, reaching over 100,000 students. In that role, he directed the national team of VTS trainers in developing program implementation and assessment tools in schools, museums, universities and businesses
You can hear Oren in conversation with Commonweal Founder Michael Lerner on The New School at Commonweal’s YouTube page. He also shares monthly thoughts and ideas in the Commonweal monthly eNews (you can sign up here). He is on the board of the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in Washington, DC, as well as an advisor to Commonweal’s programs including Kids and Caregivers, Somos El Poder, Collaboration for Health and Environment, Ma Earth Foundation, and the America Public Trust.
