Michael Vaughan-Cherubin has spent his career using sport to drive social change. He began his work in the field managing community-based youth programs, including several years with the charitable arm of a professional soccer club, where he ran after-school programming that brought soccer and healthy-lifestyle education to under-resourced communities. He also spent three years abroad helping grow an organization that used basketball to unite children in divided societies, and later founded a consulting practice that supported sport-for-good initiatives in more than twenty countries.

Michael then spent over a decade at a national nonprofit focused on youth soccer, where he held a series of leadership roles, most recently as Associate Vice President of Programs, overseeing partnerships and program implementation nationwide.

Beyond his professional work, Michael has coached youth soccer and basketball as a volunteer for more than two decades — including in 2024, when he spent eight weeks with the Twinning Project teaching soccer and mentorship inside the D.C. Jail. He co-authored the Urban Soccer Diploma and serves on the board of Street Sense Media, a D.C. organization working to end homelessness.