Bridging the Education and Opportunity Gap for Young People in the Bay Area
We believe opportunity, mentorship, and education are all critical to success.
As we started to seek out prospective grantees in each issue area, we took the opportunity to explore what kind of geographic reach we wanted to have. In some cases, we sought out organizations supporting people around the world, and, in other cases, we chose to go as local as possible: organizations working in our own County and/or working in the Bay Area.
This hyper-local focus was of particular interest when it came to trying to bridge the ever-widening education and opportunity gap facing young people in the Bay Area. As a result of the ever-growing economic divide facing this region, young people are generally put on one of two tracks from the earliest of ages:
one of prosperity, surrounded by high-quality education starting pre-K and continuing through until that student completes his or her post-secondary degree and lands in his or her chosen career path.
One of disparity, starting with a more limited vocabulary as they enter kindergarten and continuing with hurdles including limited homework support, fewer extracurriculars, fewer positive role models and mentors, higher chances of incarceration, fewer supports as a student considers life after high school, and even fewer opportunities to access a well-paying job with benefits.
We believe that every young person deserves every opportunity possible to successfully graduate from high school, pursue and complete post-secondary education if that is his or her choice, and enter the workforce with a well-paying job, ideally in his chosen career path.
As we started to explore the organizations working in this space, we spent a lot of time understanding the plethora of approaches and interventions available and referring back to our guiding values to see what felt right for us. Some examples of approaches we came across included:
Early-age interventions: programs for kids and parents to help bridge the vocabulary gaps evident even as kids enter kindergarten
Summer programs to help kids minimize the education loss that can occur between grades
Cost-effective daycare and kindergarten programming with unique programming approaches
After-school programs that offer academic support, enrichment activities, and a safe place for kids to go when the school day is done
Scholarships to help students gain access to college-prep schools that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford
Mentorship programs that provide positive role models and safe places for young people
In the end, we focused on seven organizations that each shared our desire for long-term systemic change in addition to programing directly for young people. They are all run by remarkable people with bold aspirations and a proven track record of making a difference in young people’s lives and outcomes. The best return on investment for humanity is investing in the next generation and we are fortunate to be able to support these organizations efforts and impact.
