In the wake of the death of Michael Brown, Jr. in 2014, and in response to the unrest and activism that summer, local leaders asked the Aspen Institute to consider what it was doing to invest in young community leaders. In 2017, Aspen launched the Aspen Young Leaders Fellowship program. The effort was led by Scott Bush, who was keen on ensuring that the kind of transformative leadership development he experienced in Aspen’s Henry Crown Fellowship program was made available to young people.