The Writer Behind
Unlock Congress
About the Author
Michael Golden is a journalist, social entrepreneur and public speaker who serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Unlock Congress and Michael’s political commentary have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Bloomberg News, Huffington Post, CQ Roll Call, RealClearPolitics, Salon, FOX News Channel, PBS, NPR, WGN, and SiriusXM Radio.
Michael gives presentations on Unlock Congress to universities, companies, non-profit organizations and political associations. Unlock Congress has been adopted in academic curricula at universities around the country including: Ohio State University, Arizona State University, University of Illinois-Chicago, Benedictine University, and Elmhurst College.
As a news reporter from 1994-1999, Michael worked for NBC and CBS television affiliates in Illinois, Iowa, and California. His investigative and public affairs reporting on politics, education, health care, and criminal justice earned him honors from the Associated Press, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Between 2000-2006, Michael worked as a campaign manager and communications strategist on political races for the White House, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives. In late 2006 he co-founded One Million Degrees, a non-profit scholarship program for low-income community college students in Illinois. OMD has raised more than $10 million to empower hundreds of scholars to graduate and launch careers. In 2012, Michael co-founded Complete The Degree, an OMD-affiliated program designed to motivate adults to return to college to finish their education.
Michael has served on the boards of the Shriver Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, Spark Chicago and OMD. Based on his work in education and workforce development, he was appointed by the state of Illinois to serve on the state’s Commission on the Elimination of Poverty.
Michael is a former media fellow at the Open Society Institute and the British-American Project. He earned his B.A. from Indiana University, and his M.S. from DePaul University’s School of Public Service.