The Virtual Scholarship Center (VSC)

The Virtual Scholarship Center teaches disconnected youth how to design social entrepreneurship projects that challenge them to identify purpose as a guide to professional pathways. Our approach eliminates one of the root causes- college affordability which diminishes career choices by increasing their eligibility and access to scholarships and internship opportunities.

$35000- That's the average debt facing college grads. As our economy becomes service-based, students struggle to demonstrate soft skills such as problem solving, leadership and empathy, that aren't part of the college curriculum. This talent gap is only complicated by the reality that 30% of students cited loan debt as the deciding factor on their career choice. With 50% of grads un/underemployed, limited capital access cripples the dream.

Roughly 70% of the students who drop out of college cite finances as key(Gates).  For low-income students, the burden of "working to learn" versus engaging in skill-building internships diminishes competitive edge for internships they already lack the social capitol to explore.  Teaching students to “treat community service like a business” builds transferable work-ready skills like the ability to attribute purpose to work that companies like Google are now seeking. Our solution uses civic engagement and entrepreneurship to close the financial aid gaps that prevent matriculation and alter job choices, while simultaneously increasing their eligibility for top internships and scholarships

In the last 2 years, we've connected helped more than 2000 students secure internships using our innovative approach to brand-building. Our niche is disconnected youth- first time offenders, homeless, foster care youth,  black/latino males. We partner with  nonprofits, high schools and colleges to provide subscriptions and training for our tools.  Our plan is to engage school districts and our current local affiliate partners on the national level. As national organizations such as the National Urban League explore ways to incorporate our tools, we are confident that VSC will be positioned to help more than 10,000 low-income/first-generation students explore professional pathways.

Track increased civic engagement hours and progression of leadership positions in correlation to respective field using pre/post surveys, qualitative interviews, and platform tracking - 10,000 disconnected youth design BRAG Projects Using VSC Design-Thinking Process to Increase Their Eligibility for Scholarship/Internship Awards

Track application submissions/placements in VSC and engage users in ongoing "Virtual Office Hours" to support increases - 60% of participants increase the number of quality applications submitted and subsequent internship experiences

Use VSC debt-tracker to gage percent of participants who report loan debts of less than $10,000 by sophomore year, Engage Employer Partners in Placement Reporting to Support Student Self-Reports through platform

- 4500 users secure scholarships internships and job placements and enter the workforce with the least amount of debt to break cycles of poverty in underserved communities

Although there are a host of scholarship/internship platforms like SALT and BIG Futures, what’s missing is a curriculum-based pathway to increase competitiveness.Our platform is unique because it replaces frustrating scholarship/internship databases with local, state and regional resources that are directly connected to students' brands, and challenges students to use design-thinking to create high-impact projects that increase their eligibility. The VSC is the first platform of its kind to connect three primary stakeholders- students, counselors/mentors and internship/scholarship providers- in a flipped model where local employers/scholarship providers can search for eligible students.

Three years ago, Q presented an ultimatum – get him into college or he would die.We taught Q how to use his experiences to launch a "Know Your Rights" campaign educating his peers on police interactions, and he earned $50,000 in scholarships. He's now exploring career options in legal reform without worrying about financing. Our model is a blended approach to 1) LEARN: equip counselors with technology to help students build portfolios,2) DO: empower youth with entrepreneurial skills to position them for scholarship/internship success, and 3) TRACK: create an online community of resources through strategic partnerships with local scholarship/internship providers.

Instead of competing with other entities, we license our tool to nonprofits, schools and colleges to augment their ability to track student progress and generate reports.  To grow our customer base, we are renovating a Scholarship Mobile, an interactive vehicle that will enable our organization to triple our subscriptions within the first 6 months of usage.  We are establishing partnerships with school districts, and working along our local partnership pipelines with organizations such as KIPP Through College and 100 Black Men to engage their organizations on the national level.  For affordability, we've engaged corporations to gift subscriptions to our partners.

For our parent nonprofit, The Scholarship Academy, we have a solid mix of earned revenue (40% of budget). We currently have 3 primary pipelines for revenue generation: 1) Sponsorships of annual subscriptions from banks and corporations- We've already secured support from SunTrust,  Wells Fargo and BB&T 2) Fee-based partnerships with existing tool-We charge a $3500 subscription/training fee, and we are also planning to requiring schools to cover one-third of costs 3) Establishing VSC as a separate LLC to create investment opportunities - We received  50k  from Points of Light Civic Accelerator to position our online tool to generate additional revenue by creating customized local scholarship/internship search engines for schools, districts, and state higher education associations.

Since our inception, The Scholarship Academy has struggled with the deep vs. wide dilemma. Through an Echoing Green Fellowship, our organization engaged more than 10,000 students but it was human capitol heavy. We recognize that via technology (developing mobile apps etc), our model is scalable,  but we free access to scholarship/internship search engines give the "perception" of access. However, what's missing for most students is a blueprint to increase their eligibility we are exploring Train the Trainer models with Scholarship Ambassadors on college campuses to bridge the gaps in capacity.

http://mailchi.mp/pointsoflight/2-startups-receive-peer-selected-50k?e=f2ae381ca1

For the first time, we have the right tools (a customizable online tool with tracking and evaluation capabilities), the right model and access to partners with national affiliations that could replicate our work. Our engagement with SOLVE will allow us to develop an effective blueprint for bringing our platform to scale, and enable us to share best practices with our peers so that we can collectively empower low-income families to obtain college degrees with the least amount of debt and equip them with the leadership skills to impact their respective fields.

Colleges

University Systems of Georgia/Board of Regents - GEAR UP

Howard University

Morehouse College

Community

KIPP Though College

National

Points of Light Civic Accelerator (current winner)

Black Male Engagement Community (BMe)

Online tools such as SALT and College Board's BIG Futures Platform, Naviance