 We are so pleased that you're able to be here for this very special launching leadership conversation with Ami You banks Davis There are a lot of great reasons why we should be having this conversation today And I am especially delighted to be able to welcome Ami back on Founders Day Here it is Mount Holyoke was founded on this day in 1837 and we are talking to a founder look you're more about that in just a minute, but also Very special today is National First Gen Day Which is was created to honor the anniversary of the signing of the Higher Education Act in 1965 Given these two anniversaries, it's especially fitting to be in conversation with you. I mean because I'm a you banks Davis class of 1995 is founder and CEO of Braven and Braven is a nonprofit that bridges the college-to-job gap for Underrepresented college students many of them first-gen students by partnering with universities to offer the skills experience and network to land a strong first job She is a 2019 Obama Foundation fellow a 2020 leadership Greater Chicago fellow a 2021 recipient of the 1954 projects luminary award and a member of the Aspen global leadership network to name just a few of her accolades Named as one of America's best startup employers of 2022 by Forbes magazine Braven is now operating in five cities and working with more than 3,300 students. I Love this part. Ami says on the Braven website We started with a vision will end with a generation of leaders as diverse as our future demands That's such a wonderful mission statement And I really want to ask you as we look at this great audience Uh-huh, and I should tell you something about the audience which is to say we have a program here at Mount Holyoke called entrepreneurship organizations and society and There are a number of faculty advisors for this Program and I wrote to all of them and said Nominate students who would be very interested in social entrepreneurship and would bring great questions to this conversation And that is why All of these folks are here today Some of them were nominated. Maybe others brought a friend But whether you came as a plus one or as one of the original nominees We know you're gonna have great questions and this is gonna be a very exciting conversation So I have a few questions for Ami and then I'm gonna open the floor So be thinking we'll be ready for you in just a little bit. I Want you to connect the dots for us, right? You Arrived at Mount Holyoke in the fall of 1991. Yeah, you majored in history politics minor and Now you're running this not-for-profit organization that you founded. Yeah Connect the dots. How'd that happen? So first of all, I'm so honored to be here with you and with each and every one of you, especially the students because This Founders Day. I do feel like I should say oh Mount Holyoke. I pay you devotion Because I really stepped onto the campus in 1991 As what I would call a wounded young girl I was coming out of a high school experience in which my parents had moved me and my Three siblings from predominantly black neighborhoods in Chicago that were incredible and hard-working and some of the lower-income neighborhoods in the city to put us in a predominately white south suburban Area in order to give us more educational opportunities But that move was very hard for them economically and I don't think what they had fully thought about was the Psychological toll it was going to take on us because I go into high school coming out of Chicago Public Magnet School Towards the top of my class and not in the very top of my class and then I take some placement exams in which I do very well as did my older sister and we hit the College counselors and the counselors that are at the school helping you maneuver your way through picking courses And they tell my mom that I deserved to be in all remedial classes And I was sitting there when they pulled out the bell-shaped curve and my guidance counselor said yeah You know, she's coming out of Chicago Public School and just given where you're coming from She shouldn't pursue upper-level courses and thankfully my mom was like there's that makes no sense to me And so she really demanded that I participate in honors and overtime advanced placement courses But it really meant that I walked this journey in high school that made it so that I felt Just not comfortable in my own skin because I'd be the only black kid or one of two black kids Maybe in my honors and AP courses and honestly I wanted to hang out with mainly other young people who identified with my racial background And those young people were not in the classes I was in and so I also felt a little bit like I wasn't really fitting in there because I Wanted to be smart, but I didn't feel like I could be smart around that group people where I felt the most at home And so I actually wrote according to Diane antsy who was on the admissions team at the time my college essay for Mount Holyoke about this tight rope I felt like I had been on in high school In which I felt like I just didn't fit in and I was just trying to walk this tight rope and that when I heard about Not Holyoke and then ended up coming to visit here that I felt at peace That I felt like this was a place where I could come and be myself And so as a result I showed up on the campus and for at least the first semester wore red hot red sweatpants and a fanny pack So I was definitely not super cool in that way But I met amazing friends Which I'll probably talk about who I really do feel like built and helped build me into the woman I became four years later and also professors and other people But really when I think about my journey onto this campus. It was that I needed a place to really come and heal hmm, so You found your place you found a support network of friends you talked about Faculty and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about the faculty But you decided to major in history and politics. How did that happen? What was your plan around that? Yeah, there was not one There really wasn't a real plan But I did hear about certain professors on campus that people really enjoyed their classes So I just started to attend classes that I found interesting especially in those first couple years Thankfully, we were able to just really explore What we might want to do before we had to set our major But really I was following quite a few of my friends at the time into African-american history classes and then just realizing oh, I really like studying the antebellum period And so then I decided to major in history, but also at the time there was a there was a course on campus I'm not sure it's still here called spirituals in the blues. Oh, yes, John Grayson. Mm-hmm. That was very Popular and hard to get into but I got into that course and just really again and sort of going back to like I enter this place as someone Who's confidence had been really rocked I think in so many different ways and I think that course just helped to also I'm a person of faith helped to really make me think about like the role of my own faith as well as the role of my My heritage and my ancestors in terms of how I started to construct a new vision for myself And so that's really how I ended up in history was just sort of these courses I was in and then I was like, okay, it's time to declare I've seemed to have taken a lot of history courses and and that's then when I started to say well what might my minor be and you know given my Financial background at the time my parents were like you either need to be a doctor I wasn't so good in the sciences Or a lawyer But one of those who passed because you've got to come out of here and honestly make money Because of the amount of financial aid I was on etc And so the politics minor was really thinking that I'm gonna leave and ultimately become a lawyer So you left and joined teach for me. Yeah, so I My mom was like, oh my god, you're destroying your life not joking Because and I can't blame her now that I'm like a mother of three children and I'm staring down College tuition and you know four or five years or so I think for her she really was like, oh my goodness like You know, I've done the best that I could with what I had and really they had given so much to us To make it possible for me to go to Mount Holyoke my older sister went to Bowdoin So another small liberal arts college and then there were two more coming behind us And so my brother ends up at Bowdoin You're gonna hear a trend here and then my younger sister ends up at Mount Holyoke So my parents were, you know, definitely stretching themselves economically And so I was trying to figure out how to thread this needle also with honoring my parents and all that they had done For me and I was very aware of that But I got some air cover because my older sister did end up going into law school And so thankfully she said to my mom, you know what just let her follow her passion For a bit and like let her go explore what she might do next. So I was really thinking about some form of service I really wanted to pay it forward into the black community in particular And so I was looking at various different nonprofits to get a start in and Teach for America was really new at the time And one of my friends who didn't even do Teach for America was for some reason recruiting for Teach for America on the campus And she was like you should just think about doing Teach for America And basically and you're gonna hear this trend here my college roommate sophomore year who was the student government president So she was very important on campus She said, you know what? I think I'm gonna do Teach for America So honestly, I was kind of also just following along with her And I really do believe that iron sharpens iron and I feel like at Mount Holyoke Some of what was happening with me was I was I was alongside these amazing women who I think over time I was like I can be amazing too. I can be amazing too. I can be amazing too And so when she decided to do Teach for America, and then I got in as well We both ended up doing Teach for America in New Orleans, Louisiana So there you are. So I'm gonna tell the audience a secret. Yeah, I mean, you know it But they don't that we met We might have met at Mount Holyoke. Did you ever take a class with me? I tried It was nearly impossible But I definitely knew of you because some of these amazing women who I was friends with Had been in your classes and we're definitely trying to do any form of research for you So you were quite the star professor on campus and I do think again So you're hearing me say like I had these friends on campus who were just giants on the campus and they were like They had like connections to the cool professors, etc And I still was just trying to like get in somewhere So I wasn't able to take any of your courses, but they were very popular Well, the reason I asked that question was because I started to say we first met and then I thought well Maybe we met here, but we didn't but we first met at Teach for America Because what this audience doesn't know is that I was on the board of Teach for America for quite a little while Several years and it was during that time that I encountered you there because when we met then You were serving as the chief people officer for Teach for America So from being a core member you rose through the ranks and now you're running the whole organization Yeah, our function of the organization. Tell us about that. Yeah, so super unusual And honestly the book that you wrote why do all the black kids sit together in the cafeteria even though I didn't take in your classes everybody knew about that book and so I'd read that book and so One of the things that I really reflect on a lot even on my time here on the campus was that I was friends with all kinds of people But I did to find myself really in close friendships with with women who identified as black And so when I left here and did Teach for America I wanted to actually go to a place where I could teach black children had Teach for America been in Chicago I would have wanted to go back to the south side where I grew up and and would have wanted to teach in schools there It just wasn't available at the time So I ended up in New Orleans, Louisiana where my college roommate was from teaching black students there And what I did at the time was just put my head down as a core member because when I was overwhelmed and even though I Have three children of my own and I do like children. I will not say that I'm like I love I'm in love with kids in the same way that many educators are it really was about This service component that's wanting to pay it forward And so what happened was that the founder of Teach for America Wendy Kopp continued to hear about the work that I did in New Orleans and I lived there for seven years Which was highly unusual for a core member at the time to live in New Orleans This is predating Hurricane Katrina for that length of time. I was the second longest alum in that community and the reason I stayed was I became very close to my students and very close to their families because I Definitely felt at home with them and I also started to realize I was playing this interesting role of helping them Get into opportunities that they otherwise might not have competed for Simply because their families had not been through the professional workforce Which starts to tie a bit into the world of Raven and that said Wendy Kopp comes to New Orleans to visit and She says to me like I keep hearing about the great work that you're doing But you've never come to work at Teach for America Which was a little bit unheard of because the organization by that time was really picking up steam But I never served in the summer Institute on that team. I never thought about joining the staff And then shortly thereafter I end up finally moving back home to Chicago where she sees me again And she's like I keep hearing about all this great work that you're doing Why haven't you ever thought about coming to work at Teach for America? And I was really honest with her and I said well I just actually didn't have the best experience as a black core member I was myself and my roommate from Mount Holyoke who also identified as black and maybe one or two other black people in that core But at the time the organization is not as diverse as it is and so she says to me I think you should come on the staff of Teach for America and help me fix that and I was like really But what I knew at the time Was that Teach for America was evolving and growing bigger as a nonprofit and I was I was serving as a teacher And then I started to run a nonprofit that had its own sets of beauty to it But actually it was struggling and so the opportunity to work with Wendy It was very clear to me that I would be able to sit alongside someone who is clearly building quite the credible education Institution and so that's how I started to get to know you and other board members is when I came on the team of Teach for America There were a hundred staff members When I came into that role eventually because I did some other roles alongside Wendy helping us expand and also managing Regional executive directors. There were two people really 2.5. How do you divide a person in half? You can't they were on the the human resources or human assets team and on the finance team There were two people on that team by the time I left 13 years later The team was over a hundred people the staff was 2,000 people the organization had gone from like a 10 million dollar organization To 350 million dollar organization it became quite the growth ride And that was quite the journey right grew very very fast. You were there for the ride helping it happen And then you left and I was on the board when you left and I will say this to all of you I didn't know then or didn't remember That I mean was a Mount Holyoke alone But I knew that she was in this special role and then I remember you announced that you were leaving to start this organization called Braven Yeah, tell us about that leap into the war So by that time I was overseeing the human capital work of the human assets work as we called it at the time I was also overseeing the diversity equity and inclusion work which mattered given my Experience in teach for America's core mattered a lot to me. We actually were you and this is how I did start to get to know You better we were really using that book as one of the foundational principles of how we were going to build our diversity equity and inclusion Not only our quote-unquote agenda But actually the action items that we're going to lead to change in that organization Which did start to happen which was beautiful to be a part of and in the end I also was overseeing the public affairs team that had marketing communication and government affairs Etc. So I was in this very senior level role and I would argue a little bit by accident Like where I had really kind of grown up in the organization and at one point was going to leave To actually go get a business degree and Wendy Kopp was like, why would you go do that? I was like because it seems like I need a degree and by that time my parents were like, seriously, what are you doing with yourself? Still in education and I at one point had applied to law schools gotten into some incredible law schools And kept holding seat deposits at multiple law schools, which you're not supposed to do But I just couldn't seem to bring myself away from the work that I was doing and that Said there was this data that I was sitting on in those roles that let me see that we were recruiting Upwards of 50,000 young people to the teaching core a lot of people knew that What people didn't know is that we had another 30,000 people applying to the staff of Teach for America every day So the data set I was looking at for eight of the 13 years that I was in that In those senior roles was 80,000. That's a lot of points of data And when you look at that over eight years one of the undeniable things and this is where the collision course of life starts to happen Was that my students who I taught in New Orleans as sixth graders? They happen to be graduating from college if they decided that they wanted to go to college the year of Hurricane Katrina And I thought that as long as they didn't try to get jobs Inside of New Orleans because it was underwater for at least a year That they were going to be okay And they were struggling to get jobs whether that was in Atlanta or in Houston or in Chicago one of my students So I was very close to ended up at Northwestern University an incredible Institution and you know when I met her she was 11. She had decent conduct on her report card I didn't understand that because she was like completely well behaved And she was incredibly bright and I was like why do you have decent conduct? And it turned out it was because she was bringing her books home from school And that was a discipline infraction because the school where she had started before I met her that was against the rules So she was just trying to educate herself and taking books home was getting her in trouble and so to watch her starting point all the way to Northwestern University and then to watch her come out of There on the back end of Hurricane Katrina, but basically where she looked like she might go Into a role at like Starbucks or a smoothie king at the cash register because she really had not been able to figure out Where she was going to go next and what I saw in this 80,000 data points was not just her Because she had applied to teach for America. It was interesting and the recruiter was coming into my office saying I met her She's amazing. I don't think she's going to get in and I'm like we are two decades in her case for two decades She and her mom have been doing everything possible to put her on the pathway to the American dream and teach for America might not let her in And then I knew others weren't going to let her in I was like this is just devastating and awful And there were thousands of young people like her in the 80,000 data set every single year Who were first in their family so to college often on the Pell grant and or were underrepresented minorities in the professional workforce And like myself simply just didn't have the networks and connections that other students had to help propel them forward And so this is where the idea of brave and starts to come into play from this role that I've been doing honestly for eight years So One of the things you describe about yourself. Uh, I saw this on the I think, um, obama fellowship Material that I read you describe yourself as a talent nerd. I am a Yes, I am. So say more. I mean and I can hear that even as you were talking about what you were doing at teach for America But you know, okay, so the talent nerd decides to start a company. Yeah, call brave. That's right by accident So I'm a former teacher and a talent nerd and because I'm watching this group of young people grow up Um, and it wasn't just that first class of sixth graders. I then taught for a second year I was on my way back to a third year of teaching Then I start running this nonprofit that keeps me in new worlds even longer where there were hundreds of students coming in As middle school students who wanted to get into stronger high schools in order to be on that path to college I actually had this group of like 700 or so students that were just sort of in my life that I was I was watching because I wanted to see their Potential just rise and shine as it should they were working so hard their families are working so hard, etc And so yeah as a talent nerd I realized over time and what I find so interesting about this is I didn't even know This could be a job or that this was a thing But basically what I realized about myself was that I really did Love thinking about how to help people maximize their potential and whatever way that they wanted to And so I got to do that in this role at teach for America But I also had been doing this with a group of students for a long time And so all of a sudden I started to say, you know what I really do believe this is a solvable problem Because my former students and also because I understood the competency model to get into teach for America, which was Based off of how do you get into other companies or other places as a high potential talent or as a leader? I felt like my students didn't have the knowledge and understanding around a certain set of skills that they could learn and honestly learn really fast But second they did not have access to the professional capital that other students had And what I've learned over time it's not just who you know But it's actually who knows you that matters more and I felt like there could be a way of bridging the gap between higher education And also the role of employers to make sure that that group of young people Who otherwise will come out and earn 66 cents on the dollar to their higher income peers with their bachelor's degree That they should be able to come out and earn the entire dollar and like with this former student of mine and others I mean her entire community was counting on her in many ways and she was counting on herself To be able to break open the doors to the american dreams from an income standpoint. Yeah So you talked about human capital and you know Personal capital in terms of that network. Um, let's talk about capital capital As in you know, the dollars needed to start a you know to start an organization One of the things that I know about teach for america You know founded by wendy kopp is that wendy kopp went to princeton and had a very well funded network Uh that helped her get that organization started What was your story that is not my story, um at all and I think I Thought at the time that simply because I was so close to wendy. So she hired me. I worked for her Um directly for most of the 13 years that I was on the senior team of teach for america And I don't think I had an understanding of this capital part. Um, because basically a 501c3 is a business it's just a different tax code, but otherwise it's still a business and um, You know, one of the things that even to hear you say, you know, we knew each other on the board of teach for america But you might not have known where I went to college Yeah, and I will say I think in a place like teach for america I would say especially back in the sort of early days of teach for america wendy came out of princeton other people came out of colleges like harvard I went to mount holyoke and I don't think I felt as emboldened to say that or where it just felt like I was Not necessarily at the same level of playing field to be honest Um, and then the more I got to know and spend time with wendy. I'm watching her build this incredible organization Sure playing a big role in it overseeing multiple teams But also watching and sitting alongside her when she would ask people for multi millions of dollars and they would be like Okay, so I thought that that's just how it went right as long as you knew what you were doing Knew how to run an organization that then the capital would come and I had a very rude awakening When I made the decision to go ahead and and found brave and we did get lucky And there was a donor of teach for americas who knew that I was an aspen institute fellow that I'd written at that point A paper about the lost talent of the country. That's as far as I thought this was going to go I was fulfilling a promise of a fellowship program that I was a part of that someone was paying for me to be in So I'm like one of those people you say that this is what you're supposed to do and then that's what I do Um, but what I didn't realize is I get this grant money, which is great Um, but that I was going to have a hard time raising other capital Um, even with the track record that I'd had at that point And I didn't know that black women who start social entrepreneurship ventures, and I don't want this to deter anybody from doing this Receive about four percent of the philanthropic capital in the country And it's the same holds true on the for profit side And who you know and who knows you more importantly matters a lot because often People who start social ventures will have friends and families and other people who will write them big checks to get their Non-profit started and that was not the case for me And it was though and this is where allyship I think becomes so important Wendy actually as a white woman who went to princeton who did have a lot She's one of the hardest working people I've ever met But did also have other forms of privilege did start to call donors and say I don't understand why you are not supporting for even and aren't supporting me like she helped build this place But just that she had to remind people of that I found very interesting But ultimately I decided that we were going to prove the possible that we were going to put out a big goal We were going to say that the majority of our students after College graduation within six months. They were going to earn the entire dollar And we were going to do that at least between 15 and 22 percentage points above the national average Because basically I decided that as long as we were producing results That it was going to be hard not to want to backbrave in But we're a real unusual success story at this point in time Because now we're on our way. We will have raised 21 million dollars This year we're six months ahead of doing that which is amazing and over the next three to four years We'll raise about 80 million dollars in capital And so I look forward to seeing more black young people or black people in general in the world of Social entrepreneurship and brown people and women also have a harder time raising money in the nonprofit world than men as well Be able to break sound barriers, but it's really It's really interesting to me because there are moments where I Am very aware that there are very few people like me who actually sit in the sector that I sit in that have had The success that braven's having on that side of the house So I have one more question and then we're coming to our audience But there's a phrase that I learned from one of our alums her name is Sheila Marcello and she Uses a term she describes what it means to be authentically bold She said in an interview when you bring your truest self to the table you are able to be bold in your own authenticity There's lots of evidence of that kind of boldness in your journey And I'm wondering how did your Mount Holyoke experience Help you find or deepen that sense of authentic boldness. Yeah I love that quote and I actually have met Sheila because we end up both in Fellowship at the Aspen Institute called the Braddock Fellows. So I got to spend time with her And she is incredible as an alum of Mount Holyoke as well. I mean, I will say that The authentic part really matters to me because I do feel like I'm a very unusual social entrepreneur And yet I think now it's one of the greatest assets of braven One of the reasons braven works is because I built what I wish I had had coming out of Mount Holyoke I ended up in Teach for America because a good friend of mine was like you should do this and passing out flyers I I think I went in like twice to the career center When I was here and one of those times I was like I need this thing called a resume. I think And so someone who was heading the career center at the time kind of helped me out But there were definitely other women on the campus who had family members who were in the professional workforce And sometimes I do wonder what I would have done or would have considered doing had I had more guidance at that moment in life Now I think things worked out as they should have worked out for me And so one of the things that I really think about is that the reason braven works and sometimes other nonprofits Can fall into I think some interesting terrain around issues of race class and privilege Is because people with the best of intentions don't necessarily understand the problem at the most deepest this role level And I really did myself personally the students who I worked with over the course of years Even staff members at Teach for America, especially as it became more diverse and more People literally over a four-year time period. I don't know if you remember this from your time on the board The diversity at Teach for America went up by 280% in terms of people who shared the backgrounds of our students racially and income wise And I got asked to go to the fortune conference to talk to a bunch of Like very c-suite people about how we did it and one of the things I said was that we retained people It actually was not about the recruitment of people We actually retained and promoted people because we had at that time Black staff members who were leaving in double digit numbers not being promoted in double digit numbers And we basically brought that to zero, which is what it should be And so that's what I've learned along the way is actually being authentically bold means actually Understanding that there are superpowers that each of us has given our own walks in life And to be able to apply those towards a problem or a challenge that you can see a solution for It's one of the reasons that I now have the privilege of being able to press the philanthropic world in particular About who gets access to capital and who gets access to honestly unrestricted capital or capital that allows you to do research and development around an issue and that it absolutely has to come more towards to more towards people who's Honestly aunts or uncles or others in their family will not be able to write them a first big check Right, right. Well as I have promised. I want to open the floor now for our students to ask some questions And we've got a hand right here go for it Um And I just wanted to ask you a question now that you made it so far and like you started your own business Raven, what advice would you give to yourself back when you first started college? When you are In a world where privilege does exist and there are spaces institutionally that you cannot enter How what advice would you give to? You know putting putting yourself forth in that kind of world and how to Empower yourself in a world where you maybe have to carve your way into spaces when you can't find them Yeah, no, it's such a great question First of all, uh, I'd love to know for how many of you all is this the first time that you've been in this house Me too, I mean I'm like so happy to be here like I've never been in the president's house about oil The closest I got was like singing outside at convocation Uh and so I mean it's just it's wild to me because I really do feel like I was on this campus as you all will realize too over time with women who like Really had it together. We're just such super. I mean my my college roommate was the student government body president I was just trying to like make it um And I will say that there is something in that that journey though that I had and I think that all people have around like how do you figure out who you truly are and not allowing Any institution to make you feel like you aren't truly a part of and honestly that you can't over time find your own voice In your own place But also this is something that I've realized over time that I wish I could have told myself at that point in time I did know that I liked people Like I actually did like people and getting know all kinds of people etc Now there was clearly a group of people that I found the most affinity towards However, I just really did like people I didn't realize that there was like a people thing that you could build an entire career I'm liking people and thinking about oh who might go where and who can do this and all the things right Like there's a an entire thing and I think I just really thought that like This person is such a leader because she is like a brilliant speaker or a brilliant writer and I'm not right But what she realizes that within yourself There usually is something that you can focus on that is going to make you especially if you focus on it Become better than other people at it and that's really what happened in the world of like I had this group of students I was always thinking about where might they go next to reach their fullest potential and then all of a sudden I started applying this in a role Um called the human assets role at the human capital role at this organization and realizing I was really good at it But I started to realize that I was really good in the world of people And so that's what I think is like just trying to figure out where in any institution Do you have a uniqueness about who you are that really lights your fire and follow that because otherwise I I could have never imagined 31 years ago when I stepped on this campus that I would be sitting here having this conversation ever. Yeah Others um, I'm gonna go with these two and then I'll come into this side of the room. Go ahead So I'm just hearing from your like Your story and where you came from in education and understanding the kind of common thread that shows To where for even is and like what the actual message is of like Improving the employment gap of education. I'm wondering how did you like kind of whittle down that very specific goal Throughout your many positions. I know like you were a teacher. You were director. You were a teacher again You know the fellowship like you did all these incredible things in education But you made that goal more specific every time and I'm just wondering how did you not lose focus? How did you you know continue just having a way at it until you could have your own company? Yeah, that's a great question. So wendy cop comes out of princeton her senior thesis is teach for america and boom Wow, right that is not my story. Um, I Really think one of the things that gets missed often in people becoming their greatest selves is actually time And time spent Doing um the thing that you love pretty in a pretty focused way So I know that we're in a time where people and I even say this at brave and all the time Well, people will say oh, you should go to the next thing and the next thing the next thing I don't know how you get good at one. I don't know how you get good anything I really don't and so because I was dodging law school and trying to you know Get off the phone very quick with my mom all the time about not yeah, I mean she was just deathly afraid I was going to end up back somewhere near her and she did not want that for lots of reasons And so I think when you look at my resume that I now know what that really is I was I was a teacher for those two years But really lived in that community for seven years and continued to teach I ran a nonprofit as well But the time on task actually teaching young people was very long And then when I finally ended up in the world of working with wendy I was on that senior team and in that organization for 13 years And eight of the years really focused in the human capital work or the human assets work And now even in the world of braven. I've been doing braven. It'll be close to a decade And so the fellowships and things have come while I've been doing other things But that's what made me discover Braven was actually being in that role year after year my students are growing up I'm like what in the world is going on and what I didn't know at the time is that there was nothing like braven There was nothing like braven. There's still nothing like braven for a lot of different reasons It's actually a hard thing to pull off But there was nothing like braven and it really was that I was looking at my former students and all that they had done For two decades and saying this is not okay And that's where braven started to to emerge very different than wendy who wrote this thesis So they're all different ways in which you can find your path Yes Go for it Yeah, I'm Emma Stamman and I feel very connected to your story for some reasons I'm a founder and CEO also of african and as a fitness LLC in the africana store So I've been juggling life Life work balance as a student mom And also as an entrepreneur running two businesses So my question is about funding As a person of color this summer I spent my time searching for funding In the community so just like black owned business and I found out it's really difficult Really, they say we're supporting black businesses But when you go through applications just like you have to make a specific amount of money So what was your challenge when you started your business funding? Get funding and also How did you overcome that? Yeah, there were so many and it really caught me off guard because I had been in a place that was extraordinarily well funded That I I don't know what I don't know how I think I fooled myself into believing that when I appeared before Donors that I was going to conjure up any I like any sense of like, oh, you're like my daughter or my niece I don't I did not is what I realized and so there's an enormous amount of bias Basically, there's this thing in the nonprofit world where there's a saying that says people give Funding to people and it's true and that said what I realized and this is the ally ship part of it was There were white allies in my case in particular who did start to say hey Why aren't you packing this person? But I did also understand I started to understand the importance of network mapping and really understanding Okay, I need funding or I'd like for funding to come from this place. Who do I know? Who might be attached to that place? And so often what I did especially early on Was I found myself like building network maps around an individual institution and or donor And then figuring out who knew that person Which I have to say this is the beauty of some of the tools that didn't quite exist at the power that they do now Like a LinkedIn There are just different ways where you can actually research Who's connected to who in ways that weren't wasn't the case And so then I asked people to validate what I was doing and why I was doing it and take my calls And over time and this is where I do think you have to be very comfortable as a Entrepreneur and people say this all the time like getting knocked down and getting back up getting knocked down and getting back up And basically there is something called I would say patient persistence But what I kept doing is where when I would get a no I would then say okay, but this is going to go to a yes at some point in time I would stay in touch with the person and keep them up to date about here's where we are in the world of brave And here's what's going on And I'll never forget doing that to with a donor partner Who then was like wow these results. This is undeniable And then all of a sudden 150 thousand dollars came the next week So some of it is just really looking at your own network and the network around you to help you get in those doors initially But then just proving what's possible And I do think people just come to their senses where they're like well I want to I want to be on the winning team here Yeah, that's so true. So true. I promised Hi, thank you for your time. My name's Olivia. Um, I'm really interested in your leadership within the philanthropy Spear and I wanted to know What was your biggest hurdle when you were convincing donors of your mission statement of your nonprofit? The biggest hurdle was that people Didn't want to believe that a young person with a college degree Wasn't able to maneuver into the world of work strong And the reason that was such a challenge is that for many of the people who I was asking for funding for They had Children Who had pursued college degrees and came out just fine on the back end So in their minds that there was no one thought there was a problem Actually, I didn't even think there was a problem. I had been in k-12 my entire career I kept telling my own students go to college put your head down work hard and on the back end You'll get a job and then to all of a sudden be like, oh, this is not this is not working Like I thought it was supposed to work for all of these students So the biggest challenge that I faced was people just not believing there was a problem And so initially it was the teach for america data So this is going back to like being in this role for all these years like I had data but the Organization had data so actually teach for america itself was beginning to say no, we're seeing more of our former students We're seeing more of people that share that group of folks backgrounds and they are We need to reduce the the bias in our model But there are some fundamental things that they are not getting right in the interview process That could be taught and so there was this validation also coming from an organization and then Honestly, a bunch of schools that had sent students off to college Whether they were traditional public schools or traditional or charter schools that were keeping in touch with alums And they were saying yeah, this is not quite going like we thought it was going to go And that really helped us pick up the pace with people who just didn't understand what was going on Great. Yes. Yeah, so you talked about oh castie my name is castie You talked about how you Were there at kind of like the birth of teach for america and how that organization has grown and it's you know still going strong The work that you do is super meaningful and as you get more capital, hopefully your you know organization grows I'm just wondering like What do you like? How do you scale what you're doing? Yeah, there's that question So I came into teach for america actually on the staff side at year 10 I did come into teach for america as a core member very early in the early years of teach for america So I actually entered teach for america. I'm so happy I entered when I entered because it was after the dark years That organization had its own set of challenges Um and actually entered into the phase of rapid growth, which I think was a huge benefit to me I was telling Dr. Tatum how there was another teacher america board member who kept saying to me as I was like having all these Troubles in the beginning My name is paulis need and she was she's a black woman who became the head of all marketing for craft She was like, but you've had a virtual rehearsal like you've been in the board in the rooms You've seen the board materials. You know how to run the actual operation. You're going to figure out this fundraising thing over time But because I had spent so much time at teach for america and honestly then studying other nonprofits as a result I actually did think a lot about scale to begin with with braven And so one of the most unusual things that we did And this is why I said what I said earlier is like there's no one else that does what we're doing Was that I made this crazy decision that we should partner completely with higher ed institutions And a lot of my friends who were running other nonprofits were like, why would you partner with higher ed? That's so bureaucratic, you know, and then you want to public Partner first with like public state schools that are like local commuter schools Like what is wrong with you? And I kept saying because that's where the students are like many of my students. Yes, I had that one student who went to Northwestern, but most of my students stayed local to New Orleans They either maybe went down to baton rouge or up to baton rouge and went to Louisiana state university But otherwise they were going to university of New Orleans or they were going to zavier. They were staying hyper local And so the scaling model for braven became we really needed to be in partnership with higher ed institutions So we started with 17 students in a boot camp at san jose state and then once we got course credits Which is a part of the braven model. We ended up we're like over 1700 students on that campus alone And so I knew that if we could somehow be in partnership with higher education institutions and then also partnerships with employers Because students need jobs in the back end That if we could get into those two systems and build honestly a bridge between the two that the shot of us scaling would go fast So we are now over 5300 students in the next couple years We'll hit over 10 000 students and our goal is to get to at least 40 000 And I think we will get there probably sooner than we thought But it was because I did have this experience going in And you're in multiple cities, right? Yeah, five cities. Yes, it's more than that. It might be more than that Honestly, sure. We're on our way. We're we're in six cities. We're on our way into our eighth College partnership, which we're super excited about and the news Partnerships are also with your former institution spellman college every single spellman woman in her sophomore year takes the braven experience Which is just wild to me at this point But just seeing that a black woman is likely to come out and earn 50 cents on the dollar to their white male peer Almost regardless of their income background just seem like a really great way to To make sure that we were seeing economic mobility in the black community Because what I always say is that the spellman woman is not earning the full dollar We actually cannot have a serious conversation in this country about the racial wealth gap But yeah, this goes back to the scale question. I really decided that we just had to have the courage to partner with institutions on the higher ed side and also with employers Other questions Yes Hi, my name is Tiawani Um, and I was wondering what were the most important values that you Learned about when you were at an employer can how that worked in Your career and how those apply to your jobs and your job Yeah, so one of the values that's now a core value of bravens that I think I first learned here And so you're getting a little bit of a pattern recognition for me. I'm always like I'm a one-trick pony Like I but I do that trick really well Is actually go together to go further Um, when I think about when I walked on this campus, I felt alone I felt unsure of myself and then I find this friendship group that really did nourish me And honestly where I even think about like I mean for me coming on this campus from where I was coming from The academic challenge for me was very real like the amount of I know this isn't the case now because you know We're all digitized the amount of red I would see on these papers or just I just remember like when it's like You want me to write 20 pages? Like are you kidding me right now? Like I oh, yeah. Well, I had not written five all right coming like in on this campus Like it was just like wow and so really it was my friends and all kinds of friends on the campus who like Really helped me out and really helped me learn how to write better and all of that and so I just really deeply believe that partnership and community and that I always say like I'm only as good as the people to my left in my right Like who I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with as a leader like braven is not an organization Yes, I'm the founder and the CEO But it is because of all these other incredible human beings that have decided to come alongside me Who are better and smarter than I am in various different ways And that lesson of just like I just think we live in a society where often People get lifted up for being like just the singular person. It seems like there was no tea and it's like that's just so untrue And so I feel like I learned that first at Mount Holyoke that you could actually go together to go further Like I think about these amazing Women who I went to college with here and where they are now I know I just felt like we all wanted to see each other succeed and that It wasn't like oh, you have to lose or I have to lose in order for us all to be great And I think I figured that out here first Because then you hit other environments where you watch people like claw at each other to come down And I actually think that that doesn't raise yourself up as a leader as well Yes, hi, um, my name is Catherine. I'm so happy to be here and be able to listen to this Um, basically I feel like a lot of the conversations I have with a lot of students, especially Uh, like junior and senior there anyone who sort of has like that but halfway out the door We talk a lot about sort of the anxiety of what that post-grad life is going to look like How do we figure out what our standing is? That's certainly something that is very heavy on my mind pretty much at all times Just am I gonna be able to have a good job and how that's sort of good life and obviously You've worked with students your entire career and this is not what you do And so I was wondering if you had any advice One just how to sort of Soothe the anxiety and like how to just also be able to focus on enjoying The experience of like being in college and being able to study all these new things but also while at the same time Make like continuing to take those steps towards whatever career we might end up in Yeah, so I mean Truly I think had my friend not been like, oh this teacher America thing and then my roommate was like I'm gonna do and I'm like, okay. I'm gonna do sure I would I had no idea where I was gonna go next and there definitely were Women on the campus at that period in time who were going off into like some very Like consulting. I didn't even know what consulting was. I mean, I did not know what consulting was until I went to teach for America. And so You know, I definitely feel like you can feel like you're at a disadvantage I do think this goes back to this like what are other people doing and who do you know? And what are you thinking about that you can actually discover through an internship or a micro internship What you really would you really enjoy? But one of the things that I would say is I had started to tap into for me That working with other people, which I know seems like a small step But it's actually a big step like knowing yourself like would you prefer to do individualized work or would you prefer to Work with a team? I knew I wanted to work in some form of a team environment And so what I would say is this where can you I don't know if you all still have j term But if there's j term or if there's the summertime I did like do research for a professor like I did realize in looking back that I was doing a lot of things Where I was just testing the waters of what I might like to do But I can't express enough now that I know what I know now About talking to other people who you might not even talk to about what others in their lives do And whether or not you can pick up the phone and talk to them because one thing you'll realize about people They love to talk about themselves And so it is actually a strategy of learning like oh would I like that kind of role or would I not? And what I've learned over time we say all the time to brave and fellows is often when people reach out to other people If they believe they can help you they will it's called the strength of warm ties But that said I mean I just can't stress enough that I think as long as you're doing all that you can do To figure out like who you are and what's going to drive you over time And what's going to wake you up out of bed in the morning to do the work That as long as you're being strategic about how do you build your network around you that you will Land um and land somewhere strong and even if you don't like that It's actually a learning lesson and then you can move on and do the next thing I want to hear from someone we haven't heard from yet Yeah, um hi, Zeneff. Also very happy to be here. Um, I kind of like resonated with the conversation because I myself am a senior And this is my last semester. So like going through like the job application process and like Even though I haven't like internship experiences and so throughout like my journey I'm not sure if I would say like two things That were really important to me. It was community networking But also mentorship like having a mentor or someone to like rely on someone has experience I'm curious to know if you If you had any mentor someone that you could feel like was like a role model during like your journey Yeah, that's a great question. I actually have had a few and they've all been timely So one of the things that I think about mentorship is it really in the most Important ways needs to be an active relationship not just on the mentor end, but actually on the mentee end And so when I think about my very first job Um, I had this co-teacher named Brenda Benoit who had been teaching for a long time And like she really knew what she was doing and she was like you really don't know what you're doing And she also was making more money than me So she would take me out once a week for dinner, which I really appreciated and pretty much I just did whatever Mrs. Benoit did and then it worked for me right in the classroom And she was really at least professionally in that kind of way one of my first big mentors on the campus actually there was a Um, I'm not sure. He's still a professor here, uh Preston Smith. Yes Yes, so I got super lucky that at the time that he first entered the campus He was doing a lot of um a lot on the chicago public housing Um developments and what was going to happen to them etc So I was like a research assistant for him for a while And I actually think it was through that process where I was like I am not built to be a professor or a writer in this way Like this is a little bit too much alone time with myself But I feel like he gave me an opportunity But then I'm going to actually talk about a more recent mentor and and I'm not sure how this is going to land I'm just going to put it out there because it actually took a lot from me to be like, okay We need to be and I need to learn from you, but you are very different than me Um, it's uh, it's he's now and uh, he's now a board member who's on a emeritus status at braven Which means the contribution that he made to the organization was that significant Um, but he is a guy and he would love that I'm telling the story Uh, uh, but his name is rick and he basically Braddock, so this is how I met Sheila. Sheila and I both end up getting this rick braddock Scholarship fellowship thing at the aspen institute. Um, and I was like the most unlikely person to get this scholarship fellowship because he had taken price line public Um, and he had been the CEO of fresh direct and he had been very high up at city group Um, and when I say we couldn't be more different than each other We are more different than each other and he was looking for For profit organizations that were at a mid level At that point in time cure.com was one of these that he felt like could grow but had a purpose to it He was not looking for a nonprofit organization that barely could meet its budget Etc. And he reads my application and says gosh, I think she's on to something This goes back to pattern recognition He had been very involved in the high performing charter school world In new york and in new york new jersey And he also was watching young people grow up anywhere He's like this job thing on the back end doesn't seem to be happening So I meet rick braddock for this Scholarship fellowship thing that I'm not even supposed to be in play for and he says to me And by the way as a part of this you get a mentor and I've decided to be yours and I'm like really I was looking at the list of all these other mentors I was going to resonate with because I've just walked into your office and my least favorite news channel was playing And I just don't know right like this is this is I don't know that's more different Could not be more different and yet he says to me the reason I want to be your mentors because I actually believe that Braven could have 50 percent of its revenue Coming in from employer partners and I was like what? Because he had been a CEO He was like this whole other part that you have around how employees engage Is going to be the way that companies are going to want to be involved because there's a shared value initiative he was a businessman and He created one of the biggest contributions in the world of braven But we couldn't be have been more different than each other and it was a little bit funny And I know we need to move on but his Children decided that they one of them should take me out and be like I just want you to know that at times if there are things that he says or does he doesn't mean it You know And he is an older person right but he really is I credit him a lot for helping me build the business of braven But we were very different than each other So I always say don't don't overlook the mentors that might be different than you who can actually teach you a lot About what you're trying to do because you'll find friendship and actually a lot of commonalities I'm sure there'll be some differences, but there'll be a lot of commonalities as well Okay, we're going to take two more questions And one of them is going to be that one and the next one is coming from this side of the room So get ready Go ahead So I'm actually kind of in the same boat that you were in your senior year Like I've been studying for the ELSA since the summer and I just I was just taking this weekend And I decided yesterday that I'm not doing it at all I just I feel like I just It's a it's complicated, but no, I understand I feel like guys like felt that multiple times Yeah, it just felt like it wasn't for me to be honest with myself and like honest with what I really want to do And it's that I don't know what I want to do at all But I'm from the Bronx, I live in New Jersey now But I do really want to get back to my community and contribute to the liberation of all marginalized individuals And um, I know what you're talking about teach from here, of course And I actually just like created my account for the New York City Teaching Fellow That's awesome And I'm just wondering if you think that's a good stepping stone in this like transitional period if I'm Yeah, I'm carving away Absolutely a little guidance Absolutely, so um, first of all like I literally like completely identified with this whole ELSA thing I mean, it was like the bane of my existence. I didn't want to do it. Thankfully my older sister becomes an attorney I would walk into her office and she ended up I mean just becoming quite an attorney like a corporate attorney in one of the largest firms in Chicago becomes the youngest black partner Hated every single minute of it though. Um, and I was like, I just can't do that And so I would go visit her. I'm like, there are no children on your walls Like I was just like this is just not resonating with me Um, and so again, I sort of feel like I got air cover from her But also I think it was this like feeling of like I just don't think I can wake up every day and get really excited about this line of work And it was actually a Malholyuk alum Sandy Rosenblum, I don't know if you've met her but out of new warlands I hope I have her name right might be Rosenblum, but she was actually in new warlands at the time That I was teaching and again another very nice person who took me out to lunch because clearly I was not making a lot of money at the time And she actually said to me, you know what now that I'm at this point in my life I really have realized that it's people who have found their passion and took the road less traveled Who at this point are actually not only happier but actually completely figured out how to sustain the thing that they really loved And what I think teaching taught me So I taught English and I taught history Was one I was like good at it. I wasn't great because I was around all these teachers that were fantastic But also that again this goes back into the world of that I really loved people and I really loved watching people develop and it was actually The ability to like teach students that I learned a lot about myself along the way So I always think that if it makes sense for you that teaching is a great way and a great first step into the world of any career, honestly Thanks so much and now we're coming Question over here Go ahead go for it. Hi. I'm thirsty and I just have a question like you mentioned about how getting rejected all the time So just wondering like how do you grow your confidence to keep doing what you're doing? Yeah, so um in a couple different ways. Um, so First of all, I didn't mention this but you know, I talked about like how I entered the campus. I was so unsure of myself When I was two years old two and a half My biological father actually passes pretty suddenly of a form of childhood leukemia And he was six months away from being a dentist So this is part of the reason why my family's economic trajectory was Really tough much tougher than it probably should have been because it put my mom into being a single mom With two girls and trying to figure out how she was going to make it work So she goes back to school with us in tow at night And then meets my dad now and then 40 years over time they like build this real estate business Where between the ages of four and 14 my economic trajectory actually shifted and shifted pretty greatly And so my first living memory is actually being held up to his casket And I feel like you either walk away from that kind of first memory is like glass half empty or glass half full Because like how unfair is that in the world at two and a half? You're all about getting into the world of like fairness. That's pretty unfair and that said I think sometimes Um, it really did help me view things towards the well, there's got to be another window That's going to open somewhere And that's what I find is like if you See a hardship you go through that hardship you learn the lesson that maybe you're supposed to learn But also I really do believe that when people know that people want to get to a certain place that they help You find those windows that open or those doors that open And honestly some of the doors that closed to me pretty early on Including some of the jobs that I didn't get along the way or as I thought I wanted to be some fancy attorney or whatever Created the opportunity in the space for me to realize that wasn't really what I wanted to do or that you know I just there was another path And so that's one thing that I even have to tell myself to this day because there's still doors that get shut or closed Or not as open as I want them to be and I'm always like but I know over time as long as I keep working at it And then surrounding myself with this go-together to go further like people who are in my life who are also Pulling for me that I'm going to figure out how to get to the next step But I really do think that just comes down to like just getting back up just getting back up. Um, and you figure out your way Well, please join me in thanking I'm me you banks davis founder of raven Here on founders day national first gen day