The Future Project

The Future Project
Founded September 2011
Founder Kanya Balakrishna
Andrew Mangino
Area served
United States
Key people
 Kanya Balakrishna (CEO)
Andrew Mangino (President)
Employees
110
Website www.thefutureproject.org

The Future Project is an American non-profit organization whose mission is to make it possible for every young person to discover their power—and use it to build a better future.[1]

Founded in 2011, The Future Project’s initial phase focused on working with public high schools across America to close the inspiration gap. To achieve this, they created a new role in high schools: the Dream Director. Dream Directors are transformational coaches embedded full-time in The Future Project’s partner schools, trained to work directly with young people. Through one-on-one coaching and dynamic workshops, they train hundreds of students to develop a sense of belonging, belief, purpose, and power. As of 2018, The Future Project has reached 35,000 young people across 12 school districts[2].

In 2018, The Future Project announced a partnership with Coach for their Dream It Real campaign, designed to support young people as they pursue their dreams for a better future[3]. The partnership will include Coach’s global faces Michael B. Jordan and Selena Gomez, who will both serve as honorary Dream Directors and visit The Future Project’s partner schools[4]. In Vogue[5], Selena Gomez is quoted as saying, “The Future Project in particular is very important to me as investing in young people is something that is needed now more than ever.”

Due to demand for the program, The Future Program announced a new program to reach even more young people: Future Camp[6]. In its inaugural year, these intensive 3-day workshops will take place in 10 cities across the U.S., where The Future Project will be working with 150 young people at a time to activate purpose and agency in young people at the start of their change-making journey. Eventually, The Future Project will be able to equip any youth development expert to deliver Future Camp in their community. The first Future Camp experience will take place in October 2018 in East Orange, NJ[7].

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.[8] 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.[9] 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.[10][11][12]

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[13] and raised $5 million in its first two years.[8] 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;[8] and also received a grant from the Arbor Brothers and The Heckscher Foundation for Children.[14][15]

References

  1. ↑ "About Us | The Future Project". Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  2. ↑ "The Future Project". Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  3. ↑ "The Coach Foundation | COACH". COACH Official Site. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  4. ↑ Matera, Avery. "Selena Gomez Is Visiting High School Fans for the Best Reason". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  5. ↑ "The Coach Foundation is Giving Back with the Help of Selena Gomez and Michael B. Jordan". Vogue. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  6. ↑ "Future Camp | The Future Project". Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  7. ↑ "Future Camp | The Future Project". Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  8. 1 2 3 Caprino, Kathy. "How Two Young Dreamers (And Their Supporters) Are Changing American Education". Forbes. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
  9. ↑ "Igniting Kids' Passion To Save Our Failing Schools". Fast Company. Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  10. ↑ Dennis, Celeste Hamilton. "The Future Project: Helping students change the world with their wildest dreams". Idealist Blog. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  11. ↑ Stromer, Bryan. "Having A Dream, And A Dream Director, In High School". Gotham Schools. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  12. ↑ Jiggetts, Valerie. "Moving Beyond "Doing the Right Thing"". American Sociological Association. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
  13. ↑ Shelton, Jim. "Yale philanthropy class awards $50G to 6 organizations". New Haven Register. Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  14. ↑ "The Future Project". Arbor Brothers. Retrieved 26 December 2013.
  15. ↑ Bailey, Melissa. "High-Powered Cast Gets Behind "Dream City"". New Haven Independent. Retrieved 14 November 2013.
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