About Us

Our Story

Bill Strickland founded what would become the nonprofit Manchester Bidwell Corporation in 1968 to teach young people ceramics and help them reach for a better life. Bill’s initial inspiration was the mentorship he received while a struggling high school student from an art teacher and ceramic artist that had taken an interest in him. Mr. Frank Ross taught a sixteen-year-old Bill pottery, introduced him to jazz music, and helped him believe in himself enough to enroll at and graduate from the University of Pittsburgh. From those early days onward, Bill dedicated his life to helping other people discover in themselves what he found through pottery, jazz music, and the caring instruction of a teacher that believed in him.

In the early 1970s, Bill took over a vocational training school for adults and later brought his youth arts and adult vocational training programs together under one roof. Manchester Bidwell would go on to become a pioneering example of Bill’s vision for how to alleviate “cancer of the human spirit” through beautiful environments, caring instructors, supportive & challenging programming, and an overall culture of hope and personal transformation. Today, the center serves hundreds of young people and adults every year through vocational training & arts education in a 60,000 square foot facility complete with a commercial-grade teaching kitchen, 30,000 square foot greenhouse, and a jazz hall & Grammy Award-winning recording studio.

In the years since founding Manchester Bidwell, Bill’s vision would go on to guide and facilitate the creation of another 16 nonprofit vocational training and arts education centers in the United States and abroad, including centers in San Francisco, Boston, New Haven, Cleveland, Buffalo, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Israel.

In 2023, Bill founded the Strickland Global Leadership Institute (SGLI) to institutionalize his vision for how to alleviate human suffering around the world. SGLI supports the growing network of centers guided by Bill’s vision, facilitates the creation of new centers, and trains & mentors aspiring social innovators in center administration. SGLI’s Board of Directors includes entrepreneurs, academics, nonprofit leaders, former government officials, business executives, and several founders of centers guided by Bill’s vision.

Bill’s vision stands traditional poverty programs on their head by unapologetically providing top-quality facilities and training to an area’s most underserved residents, proactively approaching employers about their hiring needs before designing curricula and achieving excellent graduation & job placement rates as a result. The dogged relentlessness of Bill’s vision is matched by its elegant simplicity. He believes, and has proven, that environments shape behavior, and environments filled with sunlight, art, good food, and caring instructors cultivate beautiful, proud, and productive people.