Some people were born to perform, others were born to create. Some people were born to build empires, and some were born to nurture others. But some, it seems, were born to fight. They fight stereotypes, the status quo, injustice, discrimination, complacency, inadequacy, hunger, and poverty. They fight for themselves, their communities, their country, and their generation. They fight to improve our way of life, but know that the fight is long. They fight for our rights, our freedom to exercise them, and the ability to change them. They fight for their voice to be heard even when it seems that no one is listening. They fight to make the world a better place by starting right here at home. And no one does it better than these 30 natural-born fighters. In partnership with Splashlife, we scoured the country to find some of the most prolific civic leaders 30 years old and younger. Some have goals of one day becoming President, others work to prepare future generations to take command, but all of them lead by example and fight to ensure that this country and its citizens are the best they can be.

Here’s the list highlight (in no particular order), but see more, including interviews, on the Splashlife website.

Name: Mathias Harter
Age: 26
Location: La Crosse, Wisconsin
Position: Mayor
Organization: City of La Crosse
Website: cityoflacrosse.org

Mathias Harter has accomplished a tremendous amount in his 26 years. In addition to graduating from college and working as a business development coordinator shortly after, Harter served as a naval aircrewman, rescue swimmer, and Navy SEAL trainee until 2008. Upon his return, Harter threw himself into leading a successful campaign for community-centered reform in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he was elected and sworn in as Mayor in 2009 — at the age of 24. As Mayor of La Crosse, Harter has reduced spending within City Hall and eliminated a tax increase, among many other accomplishments.

Name: Mary Yonkman
Age: 27
Location: Norfolk, Virginia
Position: Chief Strategy Officer
Organization: The Mission Continues
Website: missioncontinues.org

Mary Yonkman’s early experiences planted a deep-seeded sense of personal responsibility. Yonkman grew up talking about civics around the dinner table. At 8 years old, she even shadowed the mayor of her hometown. A career in service seemed a logical progression of events. At The Mission Continues, Yonkman helps ensure that service members come home to not only an undying appreciation, but also leadership opportunities to continue to serve their nation if they wish. Yonkman diligently works to inform the American public that veterans are still very much needed community members.


Name: Yusufi Vali
Age: 28
Location: Boston
Position: Community Organizer
Organization: Greater Boston Interfaith Organization
Website: gbio.org

Since moving to the United States from India at the age of 9, Yusufi Vali has placed a high priority on education. Today, it’s his mission. It is his firm belief that the greatest education comes when students are taught how to think, not what to think. And through his work as a community organizer with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, Vali rallies parents, teachers, students, and community partners in efforts to overhaul ineffective school curricula, and provide structural renovations where necessary in order to ensure a quality education. In addition to his efforts on behalf of students and schools, Vali works with the Muslim community in Boston to eradicate discrimination in the region. In fact, last year, he organized a meeting between 1,200 Muslims and the Massachusetts governor to discuss issues of discrimination facing their community. Vali believes that the meeting, held at a local mosque, not only provided the Muslim community with an open platform, but helped to restore their trust in the local government.


Name: Aaron Schock
Age: 30
Location: Peoria, Illinois
Position: Member of Congress
Organization: United States House of Representatives
Website: schock.house.gov

As the youngest member of Congress — and the June 2011 cover of Men’s Health magazine — Congressman Aaron Schock is turning heads. Since he was elected to his high school district school board, he has been driven to redirect misguided leadership. As soon as he graduated, Schock supplanted the sitting school board president. When his state representative ignored repeated requests to meet with school board members, Schock ran and won against her to serve in the Illinois General Assembly at the age of 24. There he sponsored and passed 18 substantive bills before running and winning a seat in the United States House of Representatives.


Name: Decker Ngongang
Age: 30
Location: Washington, D.C.
Position: Director of Community Engagement and Organizing
Organization: Communities for Teaching Excellence
Website: 4teachingexcellence.org

Inspired by mentors throughout his youth, Decker Ngongang believes that people lack access to, rather than interest in, their communities. He also believes that he can be one of the many to expand that access. How better to do that than to act as Director of Community Engagement and Organizing for Communities for Teaching Excellence? Ngongang energizes parents, teachers, students, and other community stakeholders in order to improve teaching effectiveness and ensure access to effective teachers for all students. By urging school districts to rethink their approaches to recruiting, supporting, evaluating, and rewarding teachers, Ngongang and Communities for Teaching Excellence encourage community discussion about equal access to quality education for students.


Name: Melissa Medina
Age: 18
Location: Boston
Position: Civic Leader
Organization: MassVote
Website: MassVote.org

Though she is only just of voting age herself, Melissa Medina dedicates her time to educating young adults about the importance of voting and registering her peers as new voters. Supported by MassVote, Medina helps lead workshops that energize young adults’ sense of civic participation, oftentimes inspiring some to become part of the next generation of young civic leaders. At the core of her civic engagement, Medina takes it upon herself to reflect a positive image of today’s young adults as hardworking, committed, and ambitious individuals.


Name: Chris Golden
Age: 21
Location: Washington, D.C.
Position: Executive Director and Co-Founder
Organization: myImpact.org
Website: myImpact.org and chrisgolden.us

It’s difficult to believe that at an even younger age, Chris Golden was selected to discuss the future of service and volunteerism in America with elected officials, seasoned activists, and a host of not-so-ordinary citizens at the 2008 Service Nation Summit. MyImpact.org was born there. Golden’s brainchild, myImpact.org stemmed from Golden’s paid attention to a City Year corps member’s account of his challenges and successes during his service. Resolved that every American should have the opportunity to hear the same inspirational story and share their own in which others may find motivation, Golden created a place for anyone to record, share, and track the impact they have in their community.


Name: Zach Maurin
Age: 27
Location: Washington, D.C.
Position: Co-Founder and Executive Director
Organization: ServeNext.org
Website: ServeNext.org

After an impactful year of AmeriCorps, Zach Maurin realized that millions of Americans are just as passionate about community service as he was, but programs to nurture this passion, like Senior Corps and Learn and Serve America, were facing frequent budget cuts and possible extinction. Maurin co-founded ServeNext to unite and train enthusiastic volunteers to garner support from government representatives, community leaders, media, and the general public for national service programs. ServeNext employs a vast grassroots network of members, who range from AmeriCorps alumni to educators who use service-learning strategies, to ensure that more people can serve and more unmet needs are addressed.


Name: Ely Flores
Age: 24
Location: Los Angeles
Position: Outreach Coordinator for GRID Alternatives and Founder of Leadership through Empowerment, Action, and Dialogue (LEAD)
Organization: GRID Alternatives and LEAD
Website: gridalternatives.org/my-community-los-angeles and leadla.org

Within the two and a half years he’s been working with GRID Alternatives, Ely Flores has helped turn more than 100 families into green families. In the past year alone, GRID Alternatives expanded into East Los Angeles, Flores’s community, bringing solar panel systems to 40 families who are not only reducing their consumerist impact on the environment, but are also benefiting from the monetary savings in this depressed economy. Flores envisions environmental justice distributed among socioeconomic groups equally. And young leaders, like those he reaches through Leadership Through Empowerment Action (LEAD), will be the driving force toward making a positive environmental impact accessible to everyone.


Name: Aaron Smith
Age: 29
Location: Washington, D.C.
Position: Executive Director
Organization: Young Invincibles
Website: YoungInvincibles.org

Aaron Smith was tired of feeling that his voice — and that of his generation — was not being heard in the debate over healthcare reform. So in the summer of 2009, he, with the help of a co-founder and few friends, launched Young Invincibles, an organization dedicated to giving 18- to 34-year-olds information about healthcare policy and advocating for change on their behalf. With a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, an internship with a Congressman, and a mother who ran for the State Assembly in Yonkers, New York, Smith seems like the perfect fit for a life in politics. But it’s not the politics he’s most proud of, it’s the ability to make change happen.


Name: Mayur Patel
Age: 28
Location: Miami
Position: Vice-President, Strategy and Assessment
Organization: Knight Foundation
Website: KnightFoundation.org

Mayur Patel was so excited about the growing role of information technology and media to improve good governance, Patel joined the Knight Foundation to help support the organization’s mission to nurture media innovation and freedom of expression as tools to better governance worldwide. Patel took advantage of an opportunity to bring Haitian journalists, media organizations, technologists, and disaster response teams to share their experiences about how media tools used for the first time in the Haiti recovery efforts could be improved for future humanitarian efforts. The Japanese Prime Minister’s office benefited from the group’s recommendations when coordinating the Japanese recovery efforts following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.


Name: Scott Warren
Age: 26
Location: New York
Position: Executive Director
Organization: Generation Citizen
Website: GenerationCitizen.org

The word "democratization" may sometimes have a negative connotation, but Scott Warren firmly believes in the expansion of democracy in America and throughout the world. By offering under-represented youth populations access and motivation to join the political process, Warren hopes to give once powerless communities the power to make a collective difference. Through Generation Citizen, which he launched, Warren is closing the civic engagement gap by targeting low-income and minority high school students right in their classrooms with a carefully crafted interdisciplinary curriculum that teaches literacy skills through civics content as well as supporting a peer to near-peer mentoring program.


Name: Lindsay Wall
Age: 28
Location: Chicago
Position: Assistant Program Director
Organization: Civic Education Project
Website: CivicEducationProject.com

Lindsay Wall can’t decide what she’s most passionate about: civic engagement among young people, community development in both rural and urban neighborhoods, or access to a quality public education system. So she combines all three endeavors through her work with the Civic Education Project. The Chicago resident is so driven to get America’s youth civically engaged that she’s currently living in Berkeley, California, in a residence hall with 91 high school students who are learning about civic engagement and contemporary social issues. Based at Northwestern University, for the last 10 years, the Civic Education Project has combined hands-on education and community service to promote civic responsibility among young people. And Wall is proud to be an integral part of something that not only provides an eye-opening experience for its students, but also gives them the tools to make their voices heard.


Name: Brian Elliot
Age: 30
Location: New York
Position: Founder and CEO
Organization: Friendfactor
Website: Friendfactor.org

When Brian Elliot went to graduate school, he was intent on going straight into international development, but unexpectedly left to fight for equal rights and started Friendfactor in late 2009. Friendfactor is dedicated to accelerating the pace of change for LGBT rights by making it easier for straight people to help their gay friends achieve equal rights. Much of his commitment to social justice comes from his Jewish parents’ encouragement to imagine and develop solutions to problems he identified in the world. And when Elliot survived a life-threatening accident, he determined that “if we want to change the world, today is the day to try to make it happen.”


Name: David Martinez III
Age: 26
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Position: Government Affairs Director
Organization: Arizona Students’ Association
Website: azstudents.org

As a student at the University of Arizona, David Martinez III was appointed by then-Governor Janet Napolitano to be the Arizona Board of Regents Student Regent, one of the highest-ranking Arizona state positions for anyone under 30. Martinez’s stint at Student Regent highlights his early career advocating for college access and affordability in Arizona. Education activism quickly replaced aspirations of becoming a public school teacher — as Government Affairs Director with the Arizona Students’ Association, a nonprofit organization representing students’ interests, Martinez lobbies the State Capitol. Though education remains his priority, his personal values and experiences drive him to further the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning) community mission for equality and acceptance as the founding president of the University of Arizona’s LGBTQ Alumni Club and member of Phoenix’s Human Rights Campaign.


Name: Kasar Abdulla
Age: 29
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Position: Director of Advocacy and Education
Organization: Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC)
Website: tnimmigrant.org

As the Director of Advocacy and Education for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, Kasar Abdulla fights to end hate based on misunderstanding and fear. She works to create a welcoming and just environment, where people can live together peacefully and celebrate the diversity that exists in our communities. As a victim of racial injustice, however, Kasar realizes these goals may seem lofty, but knows they’re worth every second of struggle to get there. And while she is passionate about her work ensuring equal rights for American immigrants and refugees, Kasar hopes that 10 years from now, she’ll be out of a job. She hopes that by then, “Muslimphobia” and immigrant bias will be resolved so that the country can focus on what’s truly important: ending hunger, better health, and preserving the environment.


Name: Whit Jones
Age: 26
Location: Washington, D.C.
Position: Campaign Director
Organization: Energy Action Coalition
Website: WeArePowerShift.org

Few people get as fired up about the environment as Whit Jones. This Spring, he helped organize Power Shift 2011, a youth movement whose mission is to reclaim power from “Big Polluters” and work for clean energy and an end to the climate crisis. For three days in Washington, D.C., Power Shift 2011 brought together 10,000 young leaders from across the country to share with one another, create campaigns to fight for clean air, and to receive the training and tools necessary to take the fight back into their own communities. Jones was then an integral part of the subsequent launch of WeArePowerShift.org, the online community where participants and eager collaborators could continue the discussion and cultivate new ways to demand that elected officials follow their lead. But even before his efforts with Power Shift, Jones fought to get his alma mater, Carleton College, to be one of the first schools to pledge to be carbon neutral, and started instituting plans for energy efficiency projects, green buildings, and wind turbines. Let’s just say, he’s a man on a mission.


Name: Jake Wood
Age: 28
Location: Los Angeles
Position: President
Organization: Team Rubicon
Website: teamrubiconusa.org

During his four years serving the country in the United States Marine Corps, Jake Wood represented the best of young service members, receiving a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for Valor. Since graduating from the Marines, Wood has founded Team Rubicon, a group of volunteer veterans and medical staff that quickly responds to disasters with life-saving relief. He has applied the lessons he learned through experiences with high crisis situations in Iraq and leading an infantry squad in Afghanistan to save lives in Port au Prince just days after the devastating Haiti earthquake. More recently, Team Rubicon deployed to Alabama and Missouri after Tornadoes tore through the region at the end of April and May.


Name: Hilary Anne Doe
Age: 25
Location: New York
Position: National Director, Campus Network and Pipeline
Organization: The Roosevelt Institute
Website: rooseveltcampusnetwork.org

This is an exciting time for Hilary Anne Doe. Young people are expected to make up 33 percent of the citizen eligible electorate by 2016, and Doe knows just how much young people can be a political powerhouse. As the National Director of The Roosevelt Institute’s Campus Network and Pipeline, Doe believes in the engagement of young adults to craft and campaign for policy reform. Government representatives have much to learn from young people’s innovative ideas about everything from the budget and national investments to entitlement benefits and international policy — and young people have much to say. Doe is maintaining resources and outlets for the best and brightest ideas from the nation’s young people.


Name: Nick Troiano
Age: 22
Location: Washington, D.C.
Position: Student, Political Reformer
Organization: Georgetown University
Website: nicktroiano.com

Since his days on student council in elementary school, Nick Troaiano has been civically engaged. And the two key elements, in his opinion, that motivate him and anyone to maintain that engagement are ownership and empowerment, both of which he utilizes and preaches today through his work as a political reformer and advocacy leader. A former United States Senate intern and Public Policy Fellow with Civic Enterprises in Washington, D.C., Troiano, now a senior at Georgetown University, has organized advocacy efforts on a local and national level, including MillennialDEBT, a campaign to support a bipartisan fiscal commission. At 22, his many hats have already included writer, photographer, producer, author, social networker, advisor, and activist, all working toward one end: to open up our political process and improve democracy.


Name: Wade Lairsen
Age: 30
Location: Newport Beach, California
Position: Senior Director
Organization: Gen Next
Website: Gen-Next.org

From working on a presidential campaign to a stint at the White House, and now coordinating entrepreneurs and CEOs who are concerned about the future of our country, Wade Lairsen has stacked up an impressive collection of experiences, and consequently, lessons, in the inner workings of the American government. As Senior Director at Gen Next, Lairsen is shaping the public debate by giving successful individuals from a variety of industries access to influential leaders in order to add new perspectives to the dialogue about economic growth, education, and international security.


Name: Benito Delgado-Olson
Age: 27
Location: Oakland, California
Position: Executive Director and Co-founder
Organization: K to College
Website: ktocollege.org

Benito Delgado-Olson co-founded the largest and most efficient direct relief school supply and dental kit program in the nation. In the first full year, K to College distributed more than 170,000 $65 kits to students in 24 school districts. With less than 1 percent overhead, K to College employs a business model similar to big business, but measures success purely by how many students they serve. Delgado-Olson’s successful model could change the way the nation provides critical materials to those who need them most and save school districts much-needed funds.


Name: Sarah Bassin
Age: 29
Location: Los Angeles
Position: Executive Director
Organization: NewGround: A Muslim Jewish Partnership for Change
Website: muslimjewishnewground.org

Often exploring her own interfaith relationships between Catholic and Jewish members of her family, Sarah Bassin, at a young age, recognized the importance and impact of interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims. She has also let it shape the type of Rabbi she has worked to become. Bassin joined NewGround as Executive Director to help direct efforts toward a greater understanding and more mature communications between these two religious groups. By offering programming to organizations interested in improving the dialogue between their Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as a fellowship for individuals who subscribe to either religion to learn skills and strategies for communication, NewGround is facilitating partnerships between these two often-opposed groups.


Name: Mike Goorhouse
Age: 25
Location: Holland, Michigan
Position: Director of Membership and Project Management Systems
Organization: Council of Michigan Foundations
Website: michiganfoundations.org

Since learning about community issues and philanthropy as a high school student, Mike Goorhouse has committed himself to encouraging philanthropy and community involvement, particularly in young adults. Not only has Goorhouse grown the number of young adults, ages 16 and 17, who serve as full voting members of community foundation boards to more than 50, but he has volunteered his time launching and fundraising for Reader for School, a nonprofit organization that coordinates local activities surrounding early education. So convinced of the power of the goodwill of others, Goorhouse has helped develop a Pay It Forward campaign in Holland, Michigan, to encourage and track small acts of kindness around the city.


Name: Luke Beckman
Age: 24
Location: Lexington, Kentucky
Position: National Director, Campaign for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury
Organization: Brain Injury Action
Website: braininjuryaction.org

Determined to serve his nation like the members of his military family, Luke Beckman was understandably disappointed to learn that a childhood medical condition made him ineligible from joining various military academies and the ROTC. This setback became Beckman’s opportunity to help injured service members heal. As many as 400,000 service members deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Working with the International Hyperbaric Medical Foundation (IHMF) and the Campaign for Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Beckman ensures that affected service members have access to affordable treatment and knowledge about the obstacles caused by PTSD and TBI.


Name: David Burstein
Age: 22
Location: New York
Position: Founder and Executive Director
Organization: Generation18
Website: Generation18.org

Listening to political commentators note how young people failed to turn out for the 2004 election, David Burstein started thinking ahead to the 2008 election. Wanting young adults, like himself, to participate in choosing the leaders who vote on major issues governing their future, Burstein charged down to Washington to interview members of Congress as well as members of his generation for a film 18 in ‘08. In it, Burstein attempts to convince naysayers and energize the enthusiastic about voting. Using media content like his film, Burstein connects young adults to each other and the merits of voting. As proof that his methods work, during the last election cycle, Genertion18 registered 25,000 voters.


Name: Jake Brewer
Age: 30
Location: Washington, D.C.
Position: Chief Strategy Officer
Organization: Fission Strategy
Website: FissionStrategy.com

Before taking the role of Chief Strategy Officer at Fission Strategy, a company delivering social media and mobile-driven strategies for nonprofits and foundations, Jake Brewer worked — and continues to do so — to make the United States government more open and accountable through open data and new forms of interaction with the public. Brewer lead the “Read the Bill” campaign at the Sunlight Foundation and helped galvanize 350,000 new voters to come out for clean energy initiatives in the 2008 election, 12,000 of whom marched on to Washington, D.C., for three days of meetings on Capitol Hill. This year, Brewer co-founded Define America, a campaign to change the conversation about immigration.


Name: Courtney Klein Johnson
Age: 28
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Position: President
Organization: United Needs
Website: UnitedNeeds.com

Battling doubt and fear, Courtney Klein Johnson stepped into the arena of civic giants when she co-founded New Global Citizens in 2008. New Global Citizens’ birth and success was predicated on the vision that young people can be mobilized in high school to solve and affect change against the world’s greatest challenges. By 2009, New Global Citizens launched 76 teams on high school campuses in 18 states across the country. Johnson has since assumed the role of President at United Needs, an organization that provides economic opportunities to solve global humanitarian issues.


Name: Elijaih Perry
Age: 17
Location: Boston
Position: Civic Leader
Organization: MassVote
Website: MassVote.org

It’s no wonder that Elijaih Perry wants to reduce the legal voting age to 17, because at that adolescent age, Perry is a vocal advocate for civic engagement among young people and youth voting rights. As he registers qualified voters, Perry takes pride in teaching individuals about the importance and impact of voting. As a young civic leader, Perry has the unique opportunity to encourage other young adults to become engaged in their communities. Perry leads workshops for Boston’s inner-city young adults about voting as a step toward civic engagement and a tool to make a difference.


Name: Mark Rembert
Age: 26
Location: Wilmington, Ohio
Position: Co-Director
Organization: Energize Clinton County
Website: energizecc.com

After 10,000 jobs disappeared in Mark Rembert’s rural hometown of Wilmington, Ohio, he resolved to embrace his community’s economic crisis as an opportunity to develop a new model for strengthening rural communities and economics through citizen-led economic development. Energize Clinton County uses this bottom-up approach and has proven to not only be effective, but also sustainable, less expensive, and yield more social benefits, such as community cohesion, along the way. Energize Clinton County has executed seven projects, ranging from campaigns to buy local products first, to the development of local trails, since its launch in 2008.