A Life of Collaborative Leadership: Spiritual Biography

Oren 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.
 

Michael is the president and co-founder of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, CancerChoices.org, the Omega Resilience Projects, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press).