PEOPLE spotlights the premiere of Nevertheless: Democracy Defenders, a four-part docuseries from Elevate Studios and executive producer Kerry Washington, following grassroots leaders fighting to protect voting rights, civil liberties and democracy around the world.

Mónica Ramírez founded Justice for Migrant Women to help farmworkers organize around their own rights, a lesson she learned from her great-grandmother in Fremont, Ohio. TIME named her to its 2026 Latino Leaders list, and Ramírez is also a 2026 Elevate Prize winner.

Elevate Prize winner Shabana Basij-Rasikh, president and co-founder of SOLA (School of Leadership, Afghanistan), has opened a permanent campus in Rwanda, five years after leading the school's evacuation from Kabul. The new campus will allow SOLA to double its enrollment of Afghan girls, alongside SOLAx, an online platform Basij-Rasikh built with her husband, Mati Amin, that has reached more than 41,000 students through WhatsApp. As the Associated Press reports, Basij-Rasikh's work has drawn support from Melinda French Gates and the Andrew Carnegie Foundation as she continues building what she calls SOLA's future "bigger than her."

Elevate Prize winner Kaushik Kappagantulu has been named to TIME's inaugural Trailblazers: Designing and Making the Future list, presented in partnership with Autodesk. As CEO of Kheyti, Kaushik has spent over a decade helping India's smallholder farmers protect their crops and increase their income through affordable, modular greenhouses. His recognition places him alongside 13 other architects, engineers, and innovators building solutions to some of the world's biggest challenges.

Elevate Prize winner Wawira Njiru, founder and CEO of Food4Education, was honored at the 17th annual DVF Awards in Venice, alongside Jane Fonda, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, and photojournalist Lynsey Addario. Wawira built Food4Education from a single meal program into one of Africa's largest school feeding initiatives, and her recognition on this stage reflects the growing global attention on locally led solutions to childhood hunger.

In a new piece for the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina García Jayaram argues that nonprofit burnout will not be solved by funding alone. Drawing on nearly seven years of Elevate's Whole Leader work, she makes the case that the sector needs to treat leaders' inner lives as strategy, not as a wellness add-on.

Elevate Prize winner Utkarsh Saxena has been named to TIME's 2026 list of the 100 most influential people in AI. The founder of Adalat AI, Saxena built speech recognition technology trained specifically on Indian languages, dialects, and legal jargon, now used in more than 5,500 courtrooms across 11 Indian states to help clear a backlog of more than 50 million pending cases.

In a new Guardian feature, Springboard to Opportunities CEO Aisha Nyandoro and mothers in the Magnolia Mother's Trust program describe how the guaranteed income initiative, the longest-running of its kind in the country, has meant far more than the $1,000 monthly stipend itself. Mothers like Amaya Jones and Kenja Patton describe how the program has given them breathing room during health crises and a support system of other mothers in the cohort, even as this year's group faces new pressure from an increasingly unstable economy and cuts to the social safety net.

Elevate Studios supported project The Dads, Dwyane Wade's documentary on fathers of transgender kids facing a choice they never expected to make: stay and fight, or leave the country.

Philanthropy is failing to meet the moment—not because it lacks money, but because it lacks courage.” In TIME, Elevate Prize CEO Carolina García Jayaram urges funders to move beyond risk-aversion and invest boldly in the leaders closest to change.

When Pawsability Dog Club's executive director Jillian stood on set for The Sherri Shepherd Show, she had no idea her organization was about to become the latest winner of The Elevate Prize GET LOUD Award. The surprise reveal, and the $25,000 that came with it, is already reshaping what's possible for her team this year.

A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) reveals that several leading AI chatbots failed to block or redirect users attempting to plan violent acts, including school shootings and bombings. In tests where researchers posed as vulnerable teens, many systems provided actionable responses instead of shutting down the conversation—underscoring serious concerns about AI safety, oversight, and the effectiveness of current guardrails.