Trabian Shorters joined Knight Foundation in December 2007. He is responsible for the foundation’s work in 26 communities across the United States and within the Knight Community Information Challenge (KCIC). Trabian has a long history of creating and running different types of networks for social innovation.

From 2003-2007 Trabian was a senior venture entrepreneur with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, where he simultaneously directed Ashoka-US, served on the global executive team and was an integrator for Ashoka-US, Canada and Mexico. In these roles, he managed major donor relationships, raised the Ashoka-US budget, spoke and traveled to Europe, Africa and South America on Ashoka's behalf.

He also found and vetted 17 Ashoka Fellows including Charles Best, Gerald Chertavian, Ron Chisom, Joe Marshall, John Sage, Jim McCorkell, Joe Williams, Tyrone Bledsoe, Jim Thompson, Steve Bigari, Ami Dar, and Eboo Patel.

Prior to Ashoka, Trabian was the leading social entrepreneur who launched Technology Works for Good (now NPowerDC). TechWorks was a first-of-its-kind network of technology providers, funders, nonprofits and consultants committed to helping nonprofits use technology to serve more people better and faster. By securing founding support and senior executive leadership from AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, Fannie Mae and the Meyer Foundation, TWFG became Washington D.C.’s leading nonprofit provider of technology solutions to organizations of all sizes.

In addition to his leadership in social entrepreneurship and technology, Trabian is one of the original authors and organizers of the AmeriCorps National Service proposal to the Clinton administration. AmeriCorps now has more than 500,000 alumni who have served thousands of organizations in the U.S. . He was a member of the Children Defense Fund's Black Student Leadership Network and was once nominated by AOL to be a Smithsonian Institution Laureate for innovations in technology delivery.

Today Trabian is vice chair of DonorsChoose.org and is a coach for New York University ’s Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Program for Social Entrepreneurship. Originally from Pontiac, Michigan, he earned a journalism degree from Michigan State University, participated in Horizons Upward Bound Program at Cranbrook, and is the proud first grandson of Kennis and Irma Lee Hutchons.