March 05, 2026
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About the Program
At Citadel, colleagues are encouraged to use their expertise to strengthen the communities where they live and work. Through the firm’s Community Leaders program, which provides nonprofit board matching, governance training and financial support, employees are helping organizations around the world advance their missions and create lasting impact.
In 2014, while in high school, Bryan Manzi joined a debate club organized by a local nonprofit in Rwanda. What began as an extracurricular activity ended up having a profound influence on his career trajectory.
Today, Manzi is a software engineer on Citadel’s Equities Engineering team and a board member of iDebate Rwanda, the nonprofit that set him on his academic and professional trajectory. His board work focuses on alumni engagement and long-term infrastructure, reflecting iDebate Rwanda’s shift from running school debate clubs to building a national organization focused on developing critical thinking skills and leadership.
Founded in the years following the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, iDebate Rwanda’s premise is straightforward: teaching young people how to make evidence-based arguments and listen critically can help normalize peaceful disagreement in a post-conflict society. “Debate gives people a way to express disagreement without dehumanizing the person on the other side,” Manzi says. “That matters in any society but especially in one rebuilding trust.” Today, iDebate Rwanda partners with 160 schools nationwide and has trained more than 12,000 students through its core programs. Participation has expanded beyond Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, with a growing share of students receiving financial support to join from rural communities.
Manzi sees his own experience with the organization as cumulative, shaped early by debate and reinforced at each stage that followed. As a high school student, he competed nationally, represented Rwanda internationally and participated in a U.S. university tour that led him to apply to university in the United States. “There’s a direct line from debate to where I am today,” he says. “The confidence, the communication skills, even the college application process. All of it traces back to that experience.”
After graduating from Dartmouth College in 2021, Manzi continued to support iDebate Rwanda as a donor and volunteer. In 2024, he joined the organization’s board, where he helps to translate the organization’s mission into durable systems by strengthening alumni connections. “How do you turn participation into something that lasts?” he says. “That’s the next phase of impact.”
iDebate Rwanda has expanded its programming beyond competitive debate with the Dreamers Academy, a 10-day residential program. The curriculum combines debate training with practical instruction in financial literacy, coding and career planning, benefiting students who are navigating higher education or professional pathways for the first time. The organization is also expanding beyond Rwanda, with a program launching in South Sudan.
Manzi supports iDebate Rwanda through Citadel’s Community Leaders program, which provides employees with resources and institutional support as they serve nonprofit organizations. He views the program as a meaningful way to amplify impact. “With relatively modest funding, you can change a student’s trajectory,” he says. “That was true for me, and it’s even more true for students in the program today.”
For Manzi, board service is less about legacy and more about continuity. The organization that gave him a voice now relies on alumni like him to help guide its growth.
“The opportunity I received shouldn’t be an exception,” he says. “The goal is to make it repeatable.”
To learn more about how you can support community-driven impact like this, visit our Civic Leadership page and explore Citadel’s Community Leaders program.
Visit iDebate Rwanda to get involved with iDebate!
