Company founder and CEO Michele Kang launched the Cognosante Foundation in 2012. Michele wanted to support innovative approaches that would help under resourced Veterans and college-aged young adults build meaningful lives and achieve financial independence.
The Cognosante Foundation has been a national leader in youth and Veteran causes. It has provided funding and support for a network of 300,000 millennials who are taking on their generation’s most pressing issues. The Foundation has also funded programs that mentor female Veteran entrepreneurs and provide homeless Veterans with safe and suitable housing.
For Michele Kang, the Foundation’s support for Veterans is personal—her parents witnessed American troops fighting in the Korean War. “American intervention in Korea saved my family. They shed blood for us,” Michele says. “I want to honor that sacrifice by helping our Veterans.”
Learn how we enable homeless Veterans to find housing, skills training, and employment as they begin new ventures.
Read about the support system that we provide for first-generation college students to help them get their lives and careers on solid footing.
I want to encourage human dignity by providing skills and tools that enable long-term success and fulfillment.
Michele Kang
Cognosante Founder and CEO
“Cognosante understands that nonprofits don’t survive on passion alone. In addition to financial support, Cognosante has also been vital in helping to connect us with a larger audience and additional resources/partners to ensure every woman Veteran and child has a home.”
Major Jas Boothe
Final Salute Founder
“Upon the completion of my time with YI Fellows Program, I found that my passion for social justice and helping others led me to pursue a career in the nonprofit sector. I currently work in communications for an environmental nonprofit with a focus on environmental justice, and I am so thankful for my time with YI for sparking the fire in me to do more for others.”
Daniela Villarreal
Young Invincibles Alumna
A visionary in the field of health information technology, Michele founded Cognosante in 2008 to disrupt and challenge the status quo in the U.S. healthcare system. Leveraging a unique set of business, data, and technical expertise in a fundamentally different way, Cognosante provides innovative solutions central to carrying out national healthcare transformation. Under Michele’s leadership, Cognosante has emerged as one of the most trusted partners of key Federal and state health agencies, while growing rapidly over the past nine years.