The Yleana Leadership Foundation, founded in 2013, sees the US’s racial wealth gap (economic/wealth accumulation) as a consequence of the opportunity gap (education). Our mission is to decrease the opportunity gap in order to decrease the racial wealth gap. By getting students ready for college with the academic and soft skills they need to succeed, and providing the support that allows them to make it through college and graduate, we increase students’ ability to access the best opportunities possible to change their economic position and ability to accumulate wealth as adults.

Our population is 95% BIPOC, primarily Black and Latinx, with an average family income of $32,829. We partner with high schools and CBOs in Baltimore, Boston/North Shore MA, NYC, and Philadelphia. We are emphatically a non-creaming organization, meaning our actions are directed at slow, incremental change in the thick middle of the curve.

By increasing the selectivity of the colleges our students attend, we: 

[1] Increase college graduation rates and access to more supportive programming

[2] Secure better financial aid packages and decrease loans, allowing students to start life with less debt

[3] Increase salaries after graduation - double and triple what students would have made after a less selective college

We also provide ongoing support to our students TO and THROUGH college: We ensure they have the support they need to get into college, persist through college and transition successfully into a career - with the aid of the following programs: 

• [1] College Access Mentoring

• [2] College Success (Persistence) Mentoring

• [3] College-to-Career Transitional Mentoring

• [4] Job/internship Database

• [5] Safety net: Once you’re part of the Yleana family, you’re family forever - we’re here for you, whatever you need!

Our work moves the normal college graduation rate from 11% (college grad rate for low-SES, first-gen students) to 80% (college grad rate for Yleana students). Doubling or tripling graduation rates and cutting student loans in half/getting rid of them completely means Yleana has a discrete economic impact on students’ financial outcomes and ability to accumulate wealth. 

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We multiply the college graduation rate by almost 8, meaning that we are taking the number of low-SES, first-gen students who can benefit from the $1M increase in lifetime earnings that comes with a college degree - and MULTIPLYING THAT NUMBER BY 8.

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Through this series of intentional college-related financial decisions and support through college, we are incrementally moving the middle of the economic curve - which has the power to ultimately move the center of the US economic pyramid, for the longest-ranging and broadest impact on the income distribution of the United States.