Caroline Klibanoff Makes History Education Look Like the ‘Hottest Instagram Channel Out There’

The yellow flag on Caroline Klibanoff’s home office wall commands space in the room, as if joining her in conversation. Its capitalized font harkens back to the bold women who fueled the American suffragist movement more than a century ago. And today, its message conveys another turning point.

The young are at the gates.

Or, as Klibanoff describes it, the young are at the proverbial table. As executive director of Made By Us, a national network of history organizations and civic leaders committed to serving the next generation, Klibanoff strives to crack the code for an engaged public. The winning combination? Museum resources in accessible formats. (Yes, that means Instagram.)

Klibanoff, who’d previously examined digital news literacy as part of her undergraduate thesis, studied commemoration while a graduate student at Northeastern University. She earned her master’s degree in public history and completed a certificate in digital humanities in 2018.

Back then, Klibanoff says, with the 250th anniversary of the United States in view, museum leaders around the country realized they needed a convener—some force to bring their abundant, but siloed, information together at such a pivotal moment. Enter Klibanoff. Her pitch to build a coalition of institutions, in order to combine and distribute their trusted resources, began to take shape. But not without some lumps and bumps in the clay.

“There aren’t collaborative projects in the museum world,” explains Klibanoff, who has prior experience at museums and historical societies. “Museums just typically don’t work that way.”

It didn’t take them long, though, to appreciate strength in numbers. Kate Doak-Keszler, partnerships and communications director at Made By Us, remembers the early days—when many museum leaders began to rethink their roles not just as keepers of collections, but as guardians of shared civic spaces.

“We all have limited resources,” she says, recalling conversations with cultural institutions affiliated with Made By Us. “We’re stronger when we’re sharing our resources and working together.”

Since Doak-Keszler joined Made By Us as its second employee in 2020, the nonprofit organization has grown its network of partners from 47 to more than 400. Its transformation of what Klibanoff considers to be “one of the most traditional, established fields” caught the attention of Women Who Empower judges, who honored Klibanoff with second place recognition among this year’s Innovator Award winners.

The annual initiative, spearheaded by the Office of University Advancement at Northeastern, celebrates innovators from the university community who seek to redefine today for a more inclusive and robust tomorrow. In just three years, 69 entrepreneurs have been recognized and more than $820,000 has been dispersed; that includes a record-setting $500,000 in funds this year. Klibanoff’s cohort boasts founders of skincare, biotechnology, marketing and many more companies spread across disciplines. One common thread: their determination to do it, test it, and do it better still.

While a graduate student at Northeastern, Klibanoff remembers, she was encouraged to “try a job and not just write a paper.” That hybrid of experiential and academic growth, often achieved through the co-op program and once explored by Klibanoff in her 2018 Commencement address at Northeastern, laid the foundation for all Made By Us is today.

“Northeastern brought us these opportunities to go out into the community and work on different projects that make a difference,” says Megan Barney, Klibanoff’s former Northeastern classmate and now digital operations manager at Facing History & Ourselves. Barney remembers working with Klibanoff at the university’s Our Marathon archive of the Boston Marathon bombings. From the start, Barney says, her friend’s thought leadership was evident.

“What sets leaders apart generally is that they’re willing to invest in people,” says Barney. “[Caroline] not only invests in the people that she works directly with, but she’s investing in an entire generation right now.”

That’s because Klibanoff and her team don’t believe in history for history’s sake. They believe in history that’s relevant and actionable for the inheritors of the country. For the new voter who’s reading the latest in a partner series from Made By Us and Teen Vogue; for the social media scroller who’ll stop for a timely, 60-second history; for the librarian who’s eager to bridge the gap between Juneteenth and July Fourth, but isn’t sure how to get started. At the heart of it all is the often untapped potential of 18- to 30-year-olds across the U.S., says Doak-Keszler.

“There’s always an assumption that young people are uninterested, unengaged, uninformed,” she explains. “And it’s really never true.”

Instead, the work is about tapping that potential and getting real about how to do it. Because what a curator, donor, or board member looks out for isn’t necessarily what an audience member wants, Klibanoff says. She knows, because she and the Made By Us team ask them.

Above all, Klibanoff says, these curious citizens want credible material that they can bring to their next conversation or next big decision. Because many of them have long since left their history classrooms and civics courses, they crave renewed access to information that reflects and informs their realities. And their digital lives are certainly a part of that.

“We’re trying to get history education to look like the hottest Instagram channel out there,” Klibanoff chuckles. “It’s very hard to do that!”

As they gear up to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. in 2026, Klibanoff and the Made By Us team acknowledge it as a “massive opportunity” to prioritize the young adult experience and present an honest retelling of the American story. It’s one step toward a more perfect union and, Klibanoff says, a more informed public.

With its four full-time staff members, dozens of fellows, and combined reach of around 20 million, Made By Us is growing. But in the ideal scenario for Klibanoff, it won’t be for long.

“I hope that Made By Us will be out of business,” she says. “Our hope is that history museums are the go-to resource for younger generations who are out of school and finding their way in the world.”

She’s gone from a team of one to “out of many, one”–the Made By Us motto that’s helped it grow.

“You start to see that the room is actually full of torches,” Klibanoff says. “It’s lighting the way, and you’re not alone.”