2022 Girls With Impact NextGen Leaders

Education. Economy. Equity.

Across America, COVID-19 exacerbated existing economic inequalities, continues to burden student success and learning, and has pushed millions of unprepared young people into today’s demanding workforce. At the height of the pandemic, schools of all sizes struggled to provide students with afterschool digital enrichment courses. This gap in supply has denied students’ abilities to explore their academic and creative passions and has disrupted meaningful engagement with their communities. More importantly, working youth 14-18 have not been properly equipped with the tools, literacy skills, or perspectives to navigate career pathways or options for entering college. This is the issue Girls With Impact effectively addresses.

Along with the economic and academic toll of COVID-19 on youth 14-18, young women face a “double-whammy” of disadvantage when it comes to accessing STEM-related careers, pursuing entrepreneurial dreams, and, of course, when receiving equal pay. They continue to face systemic barriers to advancing their economic and professional success, including:

• Business Confidence -- Teen girls face a 30% drop in confidence, impacting their risk taking and economic success

• Few Role Models -- Only 8% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women with 0 Latinas and only 2 Black women.
• Lack of Equity -- Women receive just 2% of the $150B in venture capital awarded.

Girls With Impact (GWI) is changing these statistics with one young woman at a time. We operate the nation’s only live, online “mini-MBA” program for under-resourced girls 14-24, equipping them with the critical confidence, business, and leadership skills needed for college and workplace success.

As part of our mission to ultimately train 1 million underserved young women, we will train 10,000 NextGen women over the next 7-10 years. Through our innovative approach, our students are empowered to gain a step up in college and career success.

CNN has said that Girls With Impact is “bridging the racial and geographic divide.”

Girls With Impact’s innovative approach to digital economic education alleviates the troubles presented by the pandemic, the administrative pressures felt by academic institutions, and supports the work of workforce agencies throughout the nation. We give the next generation the tools to lead from the top.

We recruit our students through our local and national partnerships, including: Connecticut, Texas, and New York Boys and Girls Clubs, the NYSPTA, Jack and Jill, HBCU’s, and other community organizations. Outreach efforts include e-communications, flyers, calls, and briefings for students, families, and key stakeholders.

Programming Solution:

Girls With Impact operates three primary activities running year-round:

Foundational Workforce Training:

Our signature 10-Week Business and Leadership Academy – delivered both live, online with instructors and self-paced – guides students from idea to social impact through the creation of a business plan and venture pitch. Students learn key concepts from problem solving and design thinking to marketing, technology, and finances. Through Docebo’s learning platform, GWI students attend an hour of class once a week, and graduate with a business plan, certificate of completion, a full 35 hours of live instruction, and assets for their college and career pursuits. 98% report that Girls With Impact was instrumental to college admissions.

Personalized Coaching for Career and College Success:

Following the Academy, students enter our ImpactPathways program and select among four pathways to leverage their learning and reach new levels of success: 1) college, 2) career, 3) entrepreneurship (start-up), and 4) Future Ready (for 14-16). This powerful 8-week program, delivered through Qooper HQ, brings students together with a trained business coach who prepares them to land in one of those pathways to success. Students develop their interviewing, career-identification, resume-writing skills, and so much more.

Continued Professional Network:

Designed to keep our youth connected and advancing over the longer term, the Boardroom features monthly workshops, speakers, networking, and an annual reunion. Our young women hear from industry-leading CEOs or LinkedIn experts to consistently “re-engage” our students, so they continue to grow professionally. 

There is no other single organization in the country that can match GWI’s student outcomes, community impact, and ability to advance women into leadership positions. Girls With Impact students don’t just learn – they execute – and, in the process, build critical leadership, STEM, professional and business skills. 

Girls With Impact targets under resourced, young women 14-24. We define the low-income levels we serve by those students who receive free-or-reduced lunch in school, and whose family’s household income does not exceed 80% of the median family income of that area.

We recruit girls from “Opportunity Zones,” and through partners who share a commitment to advancing economic justice. These young women typically have an unmet need or interest in business learning not offered by schools or local afterschool organizations – we address that specific need. 

When a girl like Jody Bell, 20, CEO, In Case of Deportation, goes from being a typical student at 15 to a CEO at 16, and then to a college business major and academic scholarship recipient at 17 — all during the pandemic – it speaks to our success and proven solution. She gained international press with her Girls With Impact venture and landed a $20,000 scholarship and honors seat, making college within reach for her single mom. She’s now there on a full scholarship thanks to the recommendations and unique positioning that Girls With Impact afforded her.

Jaliyah Sanders, 15, CEO of Hand-in-Earth Aquaponics Farm – “They don’t teach these things in school. My confidence went through the roof.” Jaliyah plans to pursue a career in the STEM space – and, thanks to the confidence she gained early on – she will no doubt become a top leader in industry.

Neha Shukla, 16, CEO of Six-Feet Apart, a device created to deter the spread of COVID-19, received Princess Diana’s Young Changemaker Award in 2021. 

There are millions of young women who can achieve what Jody, Jaliyah, and Neha has, yet their lack of self-esteem, financial security, and entrepreneurial exposure all act as obstacles to a bright future. We believe that if Jody can achieve great heights, any young woman can do the same with the tools our unique program delivers.

Since inception, Girls With Impact’s DEI policy has made it a priority for our team – from our leaders to our instructors to our board -- to reflect the students and communities we serve while maintaining our standards for education and business experience. Our executive team is 30% of color, our board of directors is 50% of color, and our community-facing recruiters are of 60%. All teams are majority female and led by women.

In addition to a student body that is 70% of color, Girls With Impact is committed to its own DEI policy. Our policy includes:

• Program Diversity:
  • Student Diversity -- Currently at 70%, including the LGBTQ and disabled – with our accessibility, we turn barriers into pathways of success.
  • Student Experience -- We ensure that students have space to discuss current events and socio-emotional issues to ensure our program is a safe-space for student expression
    • For example, during the Black Lives Matter protests, we made sure to hold open discussions for students of color to ensure their voices were heard and appreciated

• External DEI:
  • Utilizing 100% of corporate support to aid underserved young women.
  • Forming community partnerships to maintain our minimum 60% of color student diversity
• Internal DEI:
  • Attending Heidrick & Struggles D&I workshops.

To ensure that we are accurately engaging the communities we serve, we also embark on special initiatives including:

• Hosting our 2nd Annual International Women’s Day Benefit Concert (March 8th, 2022) in partnership with LiveNation Women, featuring Grammy award winners Sara Bareilles, Jennifer Nettles, and Nkeki Obi-Melekwe (star of Tina Turner broadway musical) and honroing New York Attorney General Letitia James and Women Moving Millions with our Advancing Equity award. 1,000+ attendees and major media coverage.
• Producing a “Post-Covid Economic Recovery for Women” report (December 2021), featuring a survey of 50+ leaders, in business and education. The report was endorsed by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal and numerous business organizations.
• An annual reporting – “What’s in the Minds of GenZ?” – that keeps us at the forefront of the needs and capabilities of this important generation.

Girls With Impact is applying to maximize our impact through MITSolve’s financial and networking opportunities.

Our full $895 tuition is offered to students of means, but we use corporate sponsorships and contributions from foundations to deliver our program free to under-resourced students. To put this in perspective, a $50,000 monetary grant from MITSolve would allow us to recruit and fully train 125 girls, which translates into a program value of $111,875. Comparable programs run $2,000+ per person, yet we’re able to deliver at about $400 per student – a tremendous ROI given our outcomes.

To train these young women, we make sure that the pool of business professionals we recruit from is top-tier and varied. With access to MIT networks, we can guarantee that students interested in the STEAM-field will be offered industry-leading mentors, coaches, and potentially even instructors. 

Our Girls With Impact platform has enabled us to grow our reach from just a few hundred students in 2017 to over 5,000 during Covid. In fact, we filled a tremendous gap – providing families a powerful after-school supplemental education as schools were still gearing up for e-learning. 

The New York Times featured our innovative work in a major article – “Helping Girls Step-up to Entrepreneurship.” During the pandemic, our students launched businesses, gained employment, and landed in college.

Since the onset of COVID-19, we believe that we have made an impact in the market of digital afterschool education. We have recently begun exploring potential partnerships with organizations like Girls Inc. and Black Girls Code to see how we can synergize and produce even more positive impact in our mutual markets.

Our ultimate goal is to train 1 million young women, but over the next 7-10 years, our goal is to train 100,000. 

We plan to achieve these goals through expansion, partner collaborations, corporate sponsorships, national and international media attention, and constant program improvement. 

Since inception, Girls with Impact has been a data-driven organization. Our primary indicators of success are:

1. Student Diversity:

• Under-served: 100% of funding for low-to-moderate income students
• Diversity: Currently 70% of students enrolled are of color, exceeding our goal of 60%

• CEO/Job Ready:
  • Leadership:  85% feel more leadership confident
  • Business: 85% of graduates complete a business plan and venture pitch presentation
  • Tech skills: 74% increase in tech skills

• College Ready:
  • Readiness: 93% feel more college ready
  • Admissions: 63% able to distinguish themselves for admissions
  • College majors: 53%+ major in business/entrepreneurship

• Financially Ready:
  • Cash management: 75% better equipped to manage cash
  • Saving money: 60% more likely to save
  • College scholarships: $110,000 average received because of our program’s unique differentiation, based on reporting students

Along with a running tally of how many students we've served and their locations, we use the following as a framework to analyze the impact and the success of our programming:

• Program Assessment and Skills Improvement – Our pre- and post-assessments are conducted throughout the program and monitored real-time to continuously improve our program and track student progression and development.
• Longitudinal Survey – Students are surveyed annually to track outcomes in college placement, career and business start-up. Our annual survey will inform us, partners, and MITSolve of the demonstrated effectiveness of Girls With Impact programming and powerful outcomes. 

In 2016, leaders at the World Economic Forum called for more women, more innovation, and more equality. That led CEO Jennifer Openshaw, then the leader for Mercer’s When Women Thrive research platform, to start Girls With Impact. The idea was based on the belief that, to train young women to be tomorrow’s leaders, we need to start earlier.

Young women have entrepreneurial dreams and the need for financial independence just as much as men. Unfortunately, social norms, economic inequalities, and the lack of access to STEM-related fields all hinder young women from pursing their passions or exploring interest in business and finance. In the corporate world, the workplace fails to champion the advancement of women no matter their seniority level. 

This next generation faces many obstacles but has access to the digital world where connection is of value. Girls With Impact leverages technology in order to deliver the tools for financial literacy training for the young women who want and need it the most. Thorough our academy, pathways, and mentorship program, we show young women the power they have and help them build the bridge to lead from the top.

Girls With Impact uses a variety of technologies and platforms to deliver high-quality education to the students we serve.

For our learning platform, we use Docebo, a learning management system that allows for live instruction, classroom dialogue, grading, assessments, and homework management.

We use Qooper HQ for our mentorship platform which connects students with mentors for continued development in career and college readiness or business start up.

Along with these technologies, we also use social media, text messaging, Zoom, and emailing to keep our students and team connected and informed.

Program Diversity:

• Student Diversity -- Currently at 70%, including the LGBTQ and disabled – with our accessibility, we turn barriers into pathways of success.
• Student Experience -- We ensure that students have space to discuss current events and socio-emotional issues to ensure our program is a safe-space for student expression
  • For example, during the Black Lives Matter protests, we made sure to hold open discussions for students of color to ensure their voices were heard and appreciated

• External DEI:
  • Utilizing 100% of corporate support to aid underserved young women.
  • Forming community partnerships to maintain our minimum 60% of color student diversity
• Internal DEI:
  • Attending Heidrick & Struggles D&I workshops.

Girls With Impact was designed to provide under-resourced young women 14-24 from across the nation with the education to become college-ready, career-oriented, and entrepreneurial leaders. We support our students’ learning with funding from foundations, corporate sponsors, and individual donors.

As the New York Times highlights, Girls With Impact accomplishes transformative outcomes by leveraging technology with the goal of delivering an innovative, modern, and cost-efficient program. Our eight core capabilities deliver a powerful and engaging program to students from across the country:

• Digital Delivery – Our tech-platform enables us to deliver a consistent and quality program to students anywhere while tracking critical data and outcomes. Our delivery allows us to meet young women where they are, reducing participation barriers such as transportation and scheduling needs.
• Scalability – Our platform was built to scale, with a capacity to serve 200,000 simultaneously.
• Curriculum Designed with Harvard Leaders – Over the years, we have built and enhanced our entrepreneurship curriculum to incorporate business school and real-world concepts while making the program engaging for our students.
• MBA-Instructor Network – Through our partnerships through UCLA, UCONN, and Georgetown, we’ve built a stable of MBA-instructors who are passionate about educating young women. These instructors have been background checked, trained, and assessed with a 93% favorability rating by our students. All instructors hold MBAs and possess real business experience, along with a commitment to these women.
• NextGen Expertise – 70% of GenZ wants to drive social innovation. Our focus on equipping students -- with our platform, tools, and guidance – enables them to turn their passion into impact while gaining critical work readiness skills.
• Mentoring Platform – Our mentoring platform matches students with business mentors, ensuring a successful relationship with their mentor. The Qooper software we use provides automatic mentor and mentee matching, the tracking of all mentoring sessions, and feedback loops.
• Corporate Partnerships – Girls With Impact has formed numerous corporate partnerships to provide our graduates mentors and internships. These include Nestle, U.S. Bank, and BiC.
• Date-Driven Outcomes – We are proud that, since inception, we’ve been a data-driven organization, capturing data across some 30 metrics – from student diversity to impact on confidence, college success, financial literacy and more. 

We are keenly aware of the need for long-term sustainability both financially and programmatically. That’s why we embark on the following:

• Corporate partnerships – Eversource Energy is the leading funder for our NextGen Connecticut initiative.
  • Additionally, J&J, U.S. Bank and BiC provide financial support, employee mentors, and internships.
• Foundations – Engaging foundations is a regular part of our ongoing outreach. These include family foundations, community foundations and donors.
• Adopt-a-School – Enables philanthropists to ‘adopt-a-school’ in their name, funding up to 100 scholarships, renewable annually. Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig is among our NYC adopters
• Annual International Women’s Day Benefit Concert with Live Nation, NYC (March 8, 2022)
• Long-term tracking and engagement of graduates

We also offer our program at full tuition ($895) for those of means.

Our CEO always strives to minimize costs -- for example, negotiating with our LMS provider, Docebo, eliminating $20,000 annually. 

Girls With Impact has received funding from philanthropic organizations and major corporations for our promising scalability and recent impact:

• In 2021, Girls With Impact was awarded $250,000 by Jack Dorsey’s #StartSmall initiative to drive equity and create the next generation of young women innovators.
• Eversource Energy recently made a $60,000 investment providing 250 scholarships to students in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
• In March, we launched in Denver, CO in partnership with U.S. Bank – investing $250,000 – and Trimble who is providing 100 scholarships for our 10-Week Business and Leadership Academy.
• We have recently partnered with Unilever’s Shea Moisture to train “100K Black Women Leaders,” an announcement made at our 2nd Annual International Women’s Day Benefit Concert. They’ve invested $200,000 into this initiative.
• In December of 2021, we partnered with Nestle, who is providing $50,000, to create a content campaign to document our fantastic outcomes and drive exposure.