This episode, Founder and CEO of Braven Aimee Eubanks Davis talks about the challenges underrepresented youth face in the labor market, what graduates need to be successful in the workplace, and the ways Braven measures its impact and plans to scale.

Aimée Eubanks Davis is the founder and CEO of Braven, a national nonprofit focused on ensuring that underrepresented college students are able to put their education to work and land strong first jobs upon graduation.

Since 2013, Aimée has led a talented team of regional executive directors as well as the heads of product, technology, development, external affairs, and staff to ensure the best possible experience for Fellows.

In partnership with university and employer partners, Braven is providing a systemic, sustainable, diverse talent strategy for our nation and has served more than 3,295 college students in Chicago, the Bay Area, Newark, New Jersey, New York City, and Atlanta. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Scaling Impact:

• How to get underrepresented young people into the labor market.
• How Braven helps underrepresented youth in higher education.
• How organizations can focus on the impact they have.
• How to measure the impact of an organization.
• The key metrics Braven uses to indicate their impact.
• What graduates need to be successful in the workplace.
• The technology challenges organizations face as they scale.

Resources:

• Braven
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Aimee Eubanks Davis:

• LinkedIn

Connecting with the host:

• Sean Boyce on LinkedIn
• Sean Boyce by Email

Quotables:

• 7:24 - “We’re really looking for that full quality employment which means it is worthy of the bachelor's degree that there are health and wealth benefits so they get a 401K they get access to strong benefits that there’s learning and development in their role and finally that there’s a pathway to promotion in their role as well so we really want to make sure students have that kind of an economic opportunity because if they don’t there’s a scarring effect on the backend.”
• 11:04 - “Just as long as you’re in higher ed you’re going to come out strong, that is not the case you actually have to get ready to come out strong, and if you don’t have parents and friends at your living room table at your dining room table or at your living room armchair giving you this advice and getting you ready then you’re actually not getting ready and people don’t know that.”
• 24:51 - “People believe at moments to volunteer or to make a commitment to a young people is so significant like I just can’t find the time and I get it people are busy I really do and yet one person can do a mock interview for 2 hours during the semester at one of our campuses and make a real connection with the student that actually could help the student see where they might go next or where that volunteer is like oh my gosh this young person is completely great my cousin runs this other company or is in the Government and works on this issue that their interested in and I can just make a quick LinkedIn connection and so the power of one is really real in our world”

If you'd like to learn how to scale impact at your nonprofit organization by more than double in less than half the time, I'd encourage you to sign up for my free 5 day email course at https://nxtstep.io/impact/.