Area served United States Founded September 2011 | Employees 70 | |
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Key people Andrew Mangino (CEO)
Kanya Balakrishna (President) Mission To transform America by inspiring its young people to discover their passions and purpose — and change the world. Website www.thefutureproject.org Headquarters New York City, New York, United States Founders Andrew Mangino, Kanya Balakrishna, Kanya Balkrishna Similar The King's School - Parramatta, Atlantic Council, National Endowment for Demo Profiles | ||
The Future Project is an American non-profit organization that is purposed to help underserved high school students prepare for the future - both college admissions and career potential. The organization also aims to transform American high schools into places that inspire students and adequately prepare them for the changing needs of the future. The organization's mission is to inspire young Americans to live lives of passion and purpose — and learn how to change the world.
Contents
In its pilot phase, The Future Project worked with urban public high schools, embedding in each school a full-time Dream Director, a new position that the organization designed with experts. As of 2015, The Future Project is working with 25,000 students across New York, New Haven, Washington, DC, Newark, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Detroit. In 2014, Andrew Mangino, co-founder of the organization, was named an Ashoka Fellow.
History
Andrew Mangino and Kanya Balakrishna met through their work at Yale Daily News. After graduating from Yale in 2009, both moved to Washington, D.C. to take on positions as speechwriters in the Obama Administration. While living in DC, they developed the idea of The Future Project after speaking with friends and educators who told them that the students, in general, were not inspired. In October 2011, they built a volunteer team of fifty people and launched the project. Kat Evasco joined the team as Chief Dream Director of San Francisco since February 2015.
Model
The Future Project — whose model is based on evidence about what students need to thrive in the twenty-first century — recruits staff members called Dream Directors and trains them at a summer Dream Academy, deploying one to each partner high school. Dream Directors are embedded in area schools and work with students by teaching courses, providing coaching and counseling, and applying culture change techniques to motivate students. The Dream Director begins with a listening tour of students, faculty, and community members and then helps to craft one project for the school. Upon doing so, they build a Dream Team of students called Future Fellows. Future Fellows subsequently develop and launch their own Future Projects - individual projects that the students develop over the course of a year or more with the help of an adult volunteer from the local community. Future Fellows are also charged with responsibility of serving as "Dream Directors" for their peers, changing school culture and serving as leaders within the school community.
Over time, Dream Directors work with hundreds of students to engage them in the process of helping them to discover a big idea, believe in themselves and each other, and turn their dream into reality. As they do so, Dream Directors work with Dream Team members to change the school's culture.
Funding
The Future Project is funded primarily by private individual philanthropic donations and small to medium foundations as well several institutional partners, including Quicken Loans, Google, Blackstone, and Yale University. The organization received $15,000 from a Yale philanthropy class and raised $5 million in its first two years. In spring 2013, the organization won the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation grant, which is given to the top 1% of emerging social enterprises each year; and also received a grant from the Arbor Brothers and The Heckscher Foundation for Children.