Braven
Put Education to Work
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
While education has the potential to be the great equalizer in our country, there are far too many underrepresented students who do everything right and still graduate from college un- or underemployed. Each year 1.3 million college enrollees will be first-generation college students or come from low-income backgrounds. Only 25% of these students will go on to secure a high-quality job within 12 months of graduation. Meaning that each year, nearly 1,000,000 low-income or first-generation college students are not maximizing their talent and potential.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Braven - Bay Area
In 2014, Braven launched its founding site in the Bay Area with San José State University and local employers across the region to ensure that all local talent thrives.
Since the launch of our founding partnership with SJSU in 2014, Braven has empowered over 1,500 SJSU students with the career competencies and networks they need to begin closing this gap. Over the past seven years in San José, 60% of our students have hailed from low-income families, 60% were first-generation college students, and 89% were people of color (among them, 34% were Latinx students and 37% were Asian American).
Braven - Newark
With a bold vision, strong leadership, and deep community engagement, Newark is working towards a strong economic future for all residents. Braven is proud to be a partner in this community-wide effort since 2015 through our program at Rutgers University-Newark. With more than 930 students served in the past six years, the strength of Braven’s Newark region has been bolstered by our employer partnerships with Barclays, Deloitte, LinkedIn, Salesforce, and especially Prudential Financial. In 2021, 216 Braven Fellows graduated from Rutgers University-Newark. This new class is outpacing their peers nationally in strong job attainment by 24 percentage points (69% vs 45%) within six months of graduation.
Braven - Chicago
Braven launched in Chicago, our Founder Aimée’s hometown, in 2018 and is working with partners across the city to ensure that all local talent thrives.
Since 2018, Braven has partnered with National Louis University’s Harrison Professional Pathways Program. National Louis University’s forward-thinking leadership and commitment to better preparing underrepresented students for careers make it an ideal founding partner. Students earn their Bachelor’s for $40,000 and choose one of six career pathways. The student body is 95% people of color and 85% Pell Grant eligible. More than 450 NLU students have completed the Braven program in our first five cohorts of Fellows.
Braven - NYC
Given the diversity and magnitude of New York City’s young untapped talent, its role as a global leader of industry and commerce, and the tremendous energy rallying to close the education-to-employment gap, Braven launched in partnership with the City University of New York at Lehman College in January 2020. Together Braven and Lehman College are committed to empowering students from humble beginnings on the path to the American Dream. More than 700 Fellows have completed the Braven course at Lehman in our first three cohorts.
We will launch our second New York site at The City College of New York in January 2023.
Braven - Atlanta
Braven’s partnership with Spelman College is the first with a historically Black and all-women’s college. Spelman College has a long legacy of helping Black women achieve what was historically not always possible as a result of our country’s systemic racial and gender inequities. This partnership will further that legacy by ensuring Spelman students receive additional support to develop the skills, confidence, experiences, and networks necessary to launch careers that maximize their potential.
Starting in January 2022, as part of its SPELMAN PATHWAYS: CREATING YOUR PATH TO LIFE AND CAREER EXCELLENCE initiative, the revised sophomore year experience (Braven) supports all Spelman students on a path to economic mobility. 423 Spelmanites completed Braven in its inaugural semester.
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
McNulty Prize 2023
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of participants engaged in programs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This is the # of New Fellows served each fiscal year at our university sites.
Number of participants who gain employment
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Employed in a quality role, a pathway role, or enrolled in a graduate program within 6 months of graduation. Braven 2023 grads achieved 89% placement, compared to 81% of 2022 grads nationally.
Number of clients placed in internships
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Compared with graduates nationally, Braven 2023 graduates were 23 percentage points more likely to have at least one internship during their college experience.
Number of scholars who graduate from four year colleges and university within six years
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The mission of Braven is to empower promising, underrepresented young people—first-generation college students, students from low-income backgrounds, and students of color—with the skills, confidence, experiences and networks necessary to transition from college to strong first jobs, which lead to meaningful careers and lives of impact. Our vision is that the next generation of leaders will emerge from everywhere and be as diverse as our future demands. We are working towards one key outcome: Fellows graduate from college and secure a full-time job worthy of their Bachelor's degree or enroll full-time in graduate school.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Braven supports untapped students from college to career by partnering directly with universities and employers to offer a two-part experience that begins with a credit-bearing course followed by a post-course experience that lasts through graduation. Fellows emerge from Braven with the skills, confidence, experiences and networks they need to get a strong first job.
1. The Accelerator Course: The course is a hybrid online and in-person career-acceleration experience that students take for credit during their sophomore or junior year. Fellows complete weekly online modules and assignments to develop in five professional competencies: operating and managing, problem solving, working in teams, networking and communicating, and self-driven leading. Volunteer professionals from local employers, called Leadership Coaches, facilitate the in-person time and lead teams of 5-8 Fellows through weekly Learning Labs, sharing real-world application and feedback.
2. The Post-Course Experience: Post-Accelerator Fellows receive additional opportunities to develop leadership and career-readiness skills, engage in an enduring professional network, and stay on track to securing strong internships and jobs through 1) 1:1 on professional mentoring delivered by professionals who Braven recruits, 2) networking events, career panels, and job skills sessions run by a campus club led by Post-Accelerator Fellows, and 3) talent matching facilitated by Braven.
3. Employer & University Partnerships: Across the entire Braven experience, partnerships with employers play a key role. For employers, these partnerships offer access to rising diverse talent and enable them to provide employees with meaningful employee engagement experiences. And, for Fellows, these partnerships provide exposure to the workplace and access to a pool of strong internships and jobs.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
We currently partner with Rutgers University-Newark (RU-N) and San José State University (SJSU) and a National Louis University (NLU) in Chicago and CUNY's Lehman College. To date we have supported over 1800 Fellows and Post-Accelerator Fellows and saw strong outcomes in strong first jobs, internship attainment and college persistence.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
In addition to the strong jobs, persistence, and internship outcomes that we shared earlier, we have also grown from 17 Fellows in the 2013-2014 school year to a network of over 1800 Fellows to date.
Additionally, an exploratory study from Harvard found that Braven cohorts experienced statistically significant growth in the closeness of both friendship and advice networks. Social networks provide critical connections and important sources of professional and emotional advice. Too often students from low-income backgrounds don't have the same access to social capital as their wealthier peers. This study also found that Braven Fellows saw statistically significant growth in 5 key soft skills: job search self-efficacy, career self-efficacy, grit, sense of social and academic fit, and growth mindset.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Braven
Board of directorsas of 01/29/2024
Richard Barth
Richardson Foundation
Phillip Clay
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Susan Dunn
Liz Thompson
Cleveland Avenue Foundation for Education
Shellye Archambeau
Roger G. Arrieux
Deloitte LLP
David Levy
New Profit
Shalinee Sharma
Zearn
Vicki Walia
Prudential
Charlie Wolfson
Arrow Impact
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 01/29/2024GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.