We exist for the millions of Americans who deserve a More Perfect Union.
Here’s our founding story.
“This isn’t the country I remember.”
Jake Harriman, the Founder of More Perfect Union, was born and raised in a small farming community called the Whetsell Settlement in West Virginia. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy, Jake spent seven and a half years in the Marine Corps as both an Infantry and Force Recon Marine. During two combat tours in Iraq, Jake saw how extremism and debilitating poverty could tear apart the foundation of a nation and lead to instability — so he went about trying to reduce poverty to reduce extremism.
Jake moved to rural Kenya to start Nuru International after graduating from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Nuru has now become a highly decorated NGO that trains local community leaders to apply a variety of effective, sustainable, poverty reduction methods to help stop the spread of violent extremism.
When he returned home, he saw the need to fight political extremism on the rise right here in the United States.
More Perfect Union was founded to propose solutions on the local community level to help heal the divide in our nation. The skills that Jake acquired as a Force Recon Marine, Stanford Business School graduate, and CEO of an international NGO have all led him to this moment.
Jake was a 2015 Presidential Leadership Scholar, a 2014 White House Champion of Change, a 2015 Goldman-Sachs Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneur, and is the recipient of the Unsung Hero of Compassion award from the Dalai Lama.