Danielle Kristine Toussaint is a storyteller, strategist,
and social entrepreneur. She's founder of She Thinks Purple, producer of PurpleCon (an annual convening for women and diverse founders leading and scaling startup social enterprises), and the inaugural Morgridge Communicator-in-Residence for Ascend at Aspen Institute.
Her first book"Dare to Think Purple" is currently in production with New Degree Press and scheduled for release in December 2020. Ms. Toussaint has also been the writing pen behind op-eds and speeches for Huffington Post, Forbes.com, and TEDx.
She holds a B.A. in Political Science and African American Studies from Yale University and an M.S.Ed from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.
She's a SEED Spot mentor, a Founder Gym graduate, a founding member of Tide Risers, and a Tribetan Social Innovation Fellow.
Hello! I’m Danielle Kristine,
and this is my story:
As an 8-year-old student in Miss Castaldi’s third-grade class, I discovered two things.
First, I loved hearing and telling stories; and second, I was a natural leader.
When assigned my list of spelling words to memorize each week, rather than write ten distinct sentences as homework, I would write a story using all ten words. No one told me to do that. It’s just how my mind worked. When I found out that our beloved teacher was retiring, I convinced the principal to allow my class to throw her a surprise party. To pull that off involved persuading lots of people to do lots of things-- including convincing 8-year-olds to give up recess!
My passion for storytelling and leadership stayed with me.
When I graduated from college, my goal was to gain some advocacy experience and then apply to law school. But that all changed once I started working with parents, educators, and community members to influence the conversation around education. I saw the incredible power of elevating human stories in action. What was formerly just a fascination of my childhood became an indispensable part of my leadership arsenal.
The future belongs to the best storytellers, and that's why I founded She Thinks Purple. If you're a mission-driven entrepreneur leading a for-profit or nonprofit social enterprise, let's tell your story and change the world.