Georgette Bennett

TED speaker Dr. Georgette Bennett is an award-winning sociologist who has practiced mostly in non-academic settings. She is a widely published author, popular lecturer, and former broadcast journalist. An innovative and entrepreneurial leader, she is an active philanthropist focusing on conflict resolution, human rights, humanitarian diplomacy, and interreligious relations. In 2013, Bennett founded the Multifaith Alliance (MFA) which has since worked to raise awareness and mobilize more than $660 million worth of humanitarian aid benefitting more than four million Syrian war victims. MFA is also working in Ukraine, Turkey, and Gaza, where it has delivered aid to more than 100,000 households. In 1992, Bennett founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, the go-to organization for combatting religious prejudice. She is a co-founder of the Global Covenant of Religions/Global Covenant Partners, which focuses on delegitimizing the use of religion to justify violence and extremism. To that end, Bennett served in the U.S. State Department Religion and Foreign Policy initiative’s working group on conflict mitigation, tasked with developing recommendations for the U.S. Secretary of State on countering religion-based violence.

In her earlier career as a criminologist, she did pioneering work in what is now known as Community Policing, consulted on criminal justice staffing studies for the U.S. Department of Justice, served as Personal Consultant to the New York City Police Commissioner, and managed the budget for all New York City’s criminal justice operations at its Office of Management and Budget.

Bennett is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Past Chair of the Jewish Funders Network. She serves on the Board of Third Way and is an Advisory Board member for the International Rescue Committee and the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Among myriad recognitions, Bennett was a winner of the 2020 AARP Purpose Prize for her work with MFA. In 2021, she was selected as one of Forbes’ 50 over 50 Women of Impact, where she was cited, along with Condoleezza Rice, Dr. Najat Arafat Khelil, and Susan Rice as “women who helped shape the course of modern American foreign policy and human rights.”

Bennett’s three latest books are "Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence"; "Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By: How One Woman Confronted the Greatest Humanitarian Crisis of Our Time"; and "Half-Jew, Full Life – The Unlikely Journey of a Voluntary Jew from Nazi Persecution to the American Dream." An earlier book, "Crimewarps: The Future of Crime in America," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.