New Profit is pleased to announce the twenty-four social entrepreneurs selected for our first Equitable Education Recovery Initiative (EERI). This group of early-stage systems-change leaders is advancing programming that has the potential to have a meaningful impact on K-12 students not just for short-term recovery but also for necessary long-term transformations of our education systems in service of equity.

Each of these 24 leaders works in one of the three regions of focus that New Profit prioritized for this cohort: California (Fresno/Oakland/Sacramento), the Denver Metro area, and Tennessee (Memphis/Nashville). Each leads a nonprofit organization working to provide math/ELA tutoring, whole child supports, and/or postsecondary advising to K-12 students in their community. For the application process, services were defined as follows:

1. Tutoring: Engaging with students on rigorous math and ELA academic content in 1-on-1 or small group formats.
2. Whole Child Supports: Developing deep relationships with students to provide a structured and integrated combination of mentoring relationships and social-emotional support while partnering with educators to enhance school and classroom environments.
3. Postsecondary Advising: Supporting students to successfully navigate from high school to various postsecondary pathways, including conventional two- and four-year higher education institutions and alternative and innovative pathways to credentials and careers.

New Profit prioritized investing in racially and ethnically diverse leaders for this investment cycle, emphasizing Black, Latine/x, and Indigenous leaders. Twenty-one of the 24 entrepreneurs in the EERI Cohort identify as individuals that share these identities. More than fifty percent of the cohort organizations are co-led by women. 

The 2022 Equitable Education Recovery Initiative Cohort includes:

California (Fresno/Oakland/Sacramento):

• Calculus Roundtable, Jim Hollis: Calculus Roundtable works to accelerate math and science skills for kids, particularly students of color, to give all students an understanding of the world through the lens of math and science.  

• Central Valley Scholars, Cristina Piña: Central Valley Scholars is a community-based organization led by and for low-income, first-generation, Queer, undocumented, and Black, Indigenous, students of color. Students are provided spaces and funding to develop their own programs and services that directly impact their communities to empower youth to counteract systemic barriers to accessible education placed upon them because of their identities.

• Ever Forward-Siempre Adelante (EFSA), Ashanti Branch: The mission of Ever Forward-Siempre Adelante (EFSA) is to build character and transform lives by creating safe spaces and communities for underserved middle and high school youth by providing them with opportunities for academic, personal, familial, and community development.

• Homies Empowerment, Dr. César A. Cruz: Homies Empowerment was born in 2009 as a way of supporting and seeing young people and their community through a positive lens through empowering education, community cultivation, food justice, and cooperative economics.

• Live Again Fresno (LAF), Richard Burrell: Live Again Fresno was established to build community and a true sense of family for youth on Fresno’s Parkway Drive— exposed to sex trafficking, gang violence, and poor living conditions—through educational attainment and improving health outcomes, while also advocating to shorten motel tenancy.

• Mentoring in Medicine & Science (MIMS), Asha Vitatoe: Mentoring in Medicine & Science partners with health institutions all across the Bay Area to offer holistic and interactive programming to students of color interested in health and, therefore, increase the number of underrepresented health professionals through mentoring, career exposure, and leadership development.

• Parent Teacher Home Visits (PTHV), Gina Martinez-Keddy: Parent Teacher Home Visits fosters student success and school improvement by leveraging relationships, research, and a national network of partners to advance evidence-based practices in relational home visits within a comprehensive family engagement strategy.

• Stockton Service Corps, Erika Hermosillo: Stockton Service Corps focuses on students’ cradle-to-career outcomes. The organizational goals are ensuring local children enter kindergarten ready to learn, students become academically proficient, young people graduate from high school prepared for a postsecondary pathway of their choosing, and young people complete a postsecondary pathway beyond high school.

Denver Metro

• African Leadership Group (ALG), Papa M. Dia: African Leadership Group serves the entire African immigrant community in the Denver Area to help improve their quality of life through social, educational, and economic programs. 

• Asian Girls Ignite (AGI), Joanne Liu: Asian Girls Ignite is working to build a stronger community of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) girls by celebrating their individual and collective power through shared stories.

• Convivir Colorado, Tania Chairez: Convivir Colorado serves low-income students from mixed immigration status families, including undocumented, refugee, asylee, naturalized, those with temporary statuses (DACA), and first-generation American citizens.

• Heart & Hand (H&H), Timiya Jackson: Heart & Hand envisions a world with no opportunity gap, where all young people have access to the resources, skills, and information needed to thrive. Embedded within this vision is an acknowledgment that not all young people have access to the same resources and opportunities, a disparity driven largely by systemic racism.

• Joy as Resistance, Bre Donnelly: Joy as Resistance exists to radically increase inclusive, supportive spaces and communities for queer youth through offering individualized mental health services and mentorship and by equipping educators, families, and community partners with services and strategies to implement in every space occupied by LGBTQIA2+ youth.

• Juntos 2 College, Luis Antezana Alba: Juntos 2 College matches first-time DACA applicants with a financial backer, a legal team, and an upward mobility team and works to empower counselors and educators by equipping them with the tools and knowledge they need to advance the vision of upward mobility for undocumented students.

• Muslim Youth for Positive Impact (MYPI), Huma Babak Ebadi: Muslim Youth for Positive Impact empowers Islamic youth to positively impact their communities, environment, and relationships and promote responsible citizenship and stewardship.

• St. Clair Drake (SCD) Enrichment Program, Shalelia Dillard: St. Clair Drake Enrichment Program is the only nonprofit organization in Colorado that recruits and provides cultural and educational support for middle and high school students of color who are in advanced coursework.

Tennessee (Memphis/Nashville):

• Backfield in Motion (BIM), Todd Campbell: Backfield in Motion is an extended learning program seeking to educate, engage, and empower at-risk youth to reach their maximum potential intellectually, socially, and emotionally while becoming significant contributors to an ever-changing and challenging society. As students enter high school, the organization encourages them to engage in sports to cultivate community and exposes them to a college/career readiness curriculum, including college visits, admissions counseling, internships, and job training.​

• Legacy Mission Village (LMV), Ebralie Mwizerwa: Legacy Mission Village was founded by refugees for refugees to provide hope and healing by empowering refugees with the education and skills needed to achieve stability and facilitate successful integration into American society.

• Moves & Grooves, Emerald Mitchell: Moves and Grooves seeks to inspire youth to create for themselves and to discover, learn, and grow through the arts. The transformative after-school program— primarily serving Black girls—teaches through science experiments, hands-on engineering projects, media design, coding and choreography activities.

• SchoolSeed Foundation, Vincent McCaskill: As an intermediary for Memphis public schools, SchoolSeed Foundation raises money for programs that federal, state and local government funding is unavailable to support, coordinates community efforts to support area public schools, helps schools develop more effective educational practices, and provides ongoing educational opportunities for teachers and administrators.

• STREETS Ministries, Eric Ballentine: STREETS Ministries serves nearly 400 students a day by providing opportunities and resources to help them find their path to academic, spiritual, and physical achievement.

• The Collective Blueprint, Sarah Lockridge-Steckel: The Collective Blueprint works to increase socioeconomic mobility for youth by building postsecondary pathways to thriving careers. The organization alleviates prejudice barriers and provides youth agency and opportunities to grow professionally.

• The F.I.N.D. Design (TFD), Kara James: The F.I.N.D. Design exists to mitigate the effects of systemic and personal trauma on Black girls and girls of color by providing gender-based programming that empowers, elevates, and educates girls to be emotionally strong and resilient.

• The Gentlemen’s League, Archie Moss: The Gentlemen’s League works to positively impact the lives of hundreds of Black boys to provide them with alternatives that lead them toward a life of achievement. 

The Equitable Education Recovery Initiative Cohort convened virtually for the first time last week to begin collaborating with New Profit staff and each other. Throughout the convening, the cohort explored topics such as telling their “stories of impact,” assessing areas for organizational growth and mapping the education space to set the tone for the duration of the Cohort investment cycle.  

Over the next two years, each social entrepreneur in the Cohort will receive leadership and strategic coaching to help them build organizational capacity and take aim at changing the broader systems in which they operate—as well as $200,000 in unrestricted funding. Members of the Cohort will continue to engage in regular convenings and benefit from their peer learning community. Learn more about why New Profit is investing in the Equitable Education Recovery Initiative.

Want to stay up-to-date with news about the Equitable Education Recovery Initiative? Sign up for New Profit’s monthly newsletter here. For inquiries about New Profit’s Equitable Education Recovery Initiative Cohort, please email: catalyze@newprofit.org 

About New Profit

New Profit is a venture philanthropy organization that backs social entrepreneurs who are advancing equity and opportunity in America. New Profit exists to build a bridge between these leaders and a community of philanthropists who are committed to catalyzing their impact. New Profit provides unrestricted grants and strategic support to a portfolio of organizations led by visionary social entrepreneurs to increase their impact, scale, and sustainability. It also partners with social entrepreneurs and other cross-sector leaders to shift how government and philanthropy pursue social change to ensure that all people can thrive. Since its founding in 1998, New Profit has invested over $350M in 130+ organizations and, through the America Forward Coalition’s collective advocacy efforts, has unlocked over $1.7B in government funding for social innovation.