Reach Pathways launched by Chicago Scholars

We live in a world where our zip code is more likely to determine our life’s outcomes than our potential. We know the U.S. high school class of ’22 will lose out on a $1T in lifetime earnings. High-performing under-resourced students (HiPURS) who have the ambition and the potential to be the next civic, corporate, c-suite, and community leaders are left in the dark and without the resources to achieve their dreams.

Combine these challenges with the trillion-dollar pandemic-related learning loss anticipated by McKinsey and we’re seeing our world grow increasingly unequal. 

We know that there are 11.2M high-performing under-resourced students, their families, and support networks PER YEAR that could benefit from access to opportunity and resources.

As one of the largest education nonprofits in Chicago, Chicago Scholars is proud to have supported nearly 6,000 students get to and through college and into careers at 2-3X the national average for their peers. Yet, despite tripling in size over the past 5 years, Chicago Scholars still only serves 1 out of 8 eligible students in the city. 

We spent the last year assessing how we can scale and looking at models for growth. What we learned is that most nonprofit scale models are limited to a few major cities and do not reach the millions of students across the nation who are unable to access college and career support. 

The need to scale is urgent and yet few models exist for successful mission-oriented growth.

Data sources:

• LISC Opportunity Atlas
• Department of Labor data on salary variances by degree level, gender, and race
• Total addressable market data developed with Lotis Blue consultants using census and other data points 

REACH is the college and career pathway for under-resourced high school students in a vibrant virtual community. Less like homework and more like a video game, REACH rewards students for interacting with mentors, accessing bite-sized college and career content, and completing both real-life and in-game tasks.

REACH is the result of Chicago Scholars’ more than two decades of expertise serving nearly 6,000 students. 95% of Chicago Scholars go to college on time, 78% graduate from college compared to 10% of first-generation and low-income college students nationally, and over 50% earn more than their parents did a few years after graduation. Chicago Scholars launched the beta app in 2021 with a 90% adoption rate among high school students and their mentors. 

Reach Pathways, LLC is the new entity launched in 2022, wholly owned and mission locked by Chicago Scholars to leverage this success to date to scale nationally.

The vision of Reach Pathways is to create a vibrant nation and world powered by diverse leaders from every neighborhood. The platform achieves this vision by providing an innovative technology platform in a 3D world that supports high-performing under-resourced students to access the pathways, belonging, and resources to achieve their goals.

The platform includes step-by-step pathways curated to students' goals based on an AI-based "maps" for learning tool and video game features using the STEMuli platform. The curriculum provided is based on Chicago Scholars' Arc of Optimal Scholar Success and grounded in University of Chicago research, including learning tracks such as academics, career and leadership development, social-emotional/belonging, and financial support. REACH will build leadership skills and competencies grounded in Chicago Scholars' leadership development curriculum including self-awareness, critical thinking, growth mindset, collaboration, adaptability, and communication. We also work to build leadership intelligences, which are defined as the "ability to meet people where they are at, treat them with respect, and influence them. Ability to effectively represent Chicago Scholars in any environment." The video game format makes the learning experience more interactive and engaging for students.

REACH can play a significant role in achieving civic and social justice by addressing systemic barriers that prevent marginalized communities from accessing resources, promoting economic and social mobility. It can also contribute to strengthening civic action by providing more diverse representation in positions of power and influence, leading to more inclusive and equitable outcomes. Furthermore, REACH can support social justice by addressing the root causes of systemic inequality that contribute to mass incarceration and deportation.

REACH can fundamentally transform access to resources and how talent and opportunity meet.

Watch this demo to learn more.

REACH serves high-performing under-resourced students (HiPURS) including: BIPOC, first-generation college-going students, from low-income households and under-resourced communities, including both rural and urban communities.

REACH is led by a diverse team representative of students served and guided by a paid student advisory council trained in human-centered design techniques to provide ongoing feedback on platform design. 

After 25+ years of nonprofit expertise serving nearly 6,000 students and 100s of hours of interviews with students, families, mentors, companies, colleges, and community members, we know that HiPURS need 3 things: 

1. Pathways and leadership skills development including access to the “hidden curriculum” on how to succeed in college and career, 

2. Belonging including social-emotional support to find and meaningfully engage with community, and 

3. Financial support including access to scholarships, internships, and jobs.

Jeffery Beckham Jr. is the CEO of Chicago Scholars and the co-CEO of Reach Pathways. Born in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood in Chicago and a first-generation college-going student himself, Jeff has lived through the college and career struggle. In school, Jeff wanted to play with computers but everyone around him told him to play basketball. He was stereotyped instead of supported on his career journey.

Professionally, Jeff is a serial entrepreneur, founder of tech start-up Black Box Creative, and artist. Jeff has worked in technology, sales, healthcare, and education. As a board member of many nonprofit and education organizations including 100 Black Men, Jeff has mentored hundreds of students. Jeff is an Influential community leader and speaker, has served as a Congressional Tech Advisory Council member, and taught Pathways to Success at UIC. 

Brooke McKean is the President of Chicago Scholars and co-CEO of Reach Pathways. Brooke grew up in a rural community as the daughter of a third-generation construction worker and nurse, she was never exposed to anyone who did the job she wanted to do. In fact, she was consistently told growing up that her hopes and dreams weren’t possible to achieve. Brooke’s lived experience in rural communities will help inform the Reach Pathways scale strategy outside of urban areas.

Brooke has spent her entire career in global and national nonprofit management. She is a builder and strategist who has built organizational infrastructure from scratch for multi-million-dollar organizations. As COO of an international NGO, she built scalable infrastructure to expand from $8-$25M annual revenue. She served over 25,000 youth during the emergency response period in Haiti and designed a program implemented all over the world by UNICEF.

Kenneth Woodard is the Director of Virtual Engagement at Chicago Scholars and Head of Product Management for Reach Pathways. Kenneth’s story is the story of our Scholars. He went to college because one mentor said to him, “you’re pretty smart, you should go to college.” As a first-generation college student, he struggled in his first college, later transferred, and ended up working in admissions because he knew the struggle black and brown students face.

Kenneth is a curriculum creator extraordinaire. His curriculum, including “In the skin I’m in” and “Behind closed doors” have consistently won “best content” in student surveys. Kenneth designed Chicago Scholars research-informed college counseling curriculum that supports a 95% on-time matriculation rate for students and designed our virtual college search tool. 

REACH has been designed by and for underserved students. We hired a group of student advisors and trained them in design techniques to seek peer feedback, provide ongoing input on world design, and create content for the platform. Grounded in behavioral economics research, putting underserved students as the lead content creators inspires their near peers to succeed.

REACH also leverages Chicago Scholars’ built-in network of hundreds of community and college partners including Chicago Public Schools and other nonprofits to understand the needs of our community. 

Learn more about us here.

We're proud of our success and recognition to date, including the SXSW Pitch win in the Future of Work category and the Fast Company World Changing Ideas in Education list. Despite this success and recognition, we're struggling to raise sufficient funds to fully built out the remaining elements of our product. We are seeking experts in gaming design to create a truly fun and engaging world for our students. 

While we have significant opportunities to scale rapidly in our first few years through our existing Chicago Scholars networks, we need a clear plan for scaling beyond our existing network for national and global impact. 

We have done quite a lot of work to refine and develop our business model and we are preparing to launch a pre-seed investment round with impact investors. We hope that this program can help us get the vision and product right for impact at scale.

The REACH Pathways concept is innovative because it takes a new approach to developing leadership skills on the college and career journey through a participatory student-led design for both virtual and IRL learning. REACH recognizes that the 87% of GenZ plays video games and young people are more likely to engage with immersive, 3D worlds rather than traditional pamphlets and seminars. By providing students with avatars and step-by-step guidance in a virtual world, REACH provides a unique and engaging experience that meets students where they are at.

REACH also addresses the three key needs identified by students through extensive interviews: access to the “hidden curriculum,” belonging and social-emotional support, and financial support. 

Grounded in reciprocity values, REACH allows students to reach up to their goals, out to community, and back to the next generation.

In addition, REACH has the potential to be catalytic by changing the market and enabling broader positive impacts in this space. By scaling up to 150,000 users in 3 years and 10 million globally in 10 years, REACH could have a significant impact on college and career outcomes for students across the country. If we reach our serviceable addressable market of 3.5 million students, there could be a $2+ trillion increase in lifetime earnings and more diverse leaders in civil society, companies, and government.

Our company is founded on the belief that a student’s zip code should not determine their life outcomes. Both companies and society will benefit from more diverse leaders. REACH is the pathway to increased earnings for students from every city, town, and rural community.

LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING GOALS:

Our impact goal is to ensure that the students using our platform are engaging with the curriculum grounded in leadership development skills and competencies to grow and learn. We are looking for progress along our pathways that demonstrates growth in leadership competencies to match students to career opportunities. We are also working to build a culture of reciprocity so that students can see themselves in the content and near-pear mentors supporting them in their goals so we are tracking the ways students support and engage each other.

PATHWAY GOALS:

From Dr. Raj Chetty’s research, we know that college degree attainment is one of the greatest contributors in increasing individual wealth and opportunity. We also know from University of Chicago, NACE, and other sources that a match/fit college is key to college persistence and graduation and that internships in colleges are the best indicator of early career success. As such, our annual impact goals focus on students achieving key milestones.

Our impact goals in the next year are to ensure high school students using the platform attend match/fit/financial fit colleges on time, that college students access internship opportunities, and that college seniors and graduates are launching their careers successfully. We are working towards 10,000 users over the next year.

LONG TERM

In five years, we want to see users growing in leadership roles and giving back to their communities. We are working towards 1M users in five years.

We measure success in 3 major categories:

1. Product traction – is REACH meeting the needs of students and are they using it successfully?

2. Student outcomes – Is using REACH helping students build leadership skills and succeed in college and career?

3. Sustainability – are we generating revenue to sustain the growth and scale of REACH to more students?

Measures of success:

• Product:
  •  % of users who develop leadership skills and complete their college and career pathways
  • # of % growth in users
  • Reciprocity: % of users who contribute to the community and support other users

• Student outcomes in 12 months:
  • % of high school students who matriculate on-time to a match/fit/financial fit college as a leading indicator of persistence and graduation
  • % of students who have an internship in college as a leading indicator for career success
• Student outcomes in the next 3-5 years:
  • % of users who grow into leadership and management roles
  • % of students who persist and graduate from college
• Sustainability
  • # of potential college and company customers and # of contracts signed

Our work is about changing the face of leadership to reflect the incredible diversity of our nation and world – by REACHing up, back, and out. Individuals in leadership from diverse backgrounds create more wealth for themselves, their communities, and their companies, and reach back to create more opportunities for the next generation.

We believe that when high-performing under-resourced students (HiPURS) access 1. step-by-step pathways that build their leadership skills 2. belonging and community, and 3. financial supports and guidance, they will succeed in both college and career and grow into leadership positions in companies, civil society, and government. We know that match/fit/financial fit college choice and internships are key factors to career success. We provide these resources in a fun and engaging way leveraging human-centered design and grounded in research based on how young adults learn and succeed.

THE CONTENT:

The platform includes step-by-step pathways curated to students' goals based on an AI-based "maps" for learning tool and video game features using the Gooru Navigator and STEMuli platform. REACH is taking the Gooru technology originally designed for the classroom, described below, and mapping it to college and career pathways beginning in high school (and eventually middle school) through college and into careers based on the Chicago Scholars Arc of Optimal Scholar Success and our proven college counseling curriculum grounded in the University of Chicago Research. 

Our destination is that first job opportunity after college graduation and the pathway is skills building and development of leadership competencies. We are currently creating career pathways in business, healthcare, and technology based on student demand and opportunities for job growth. All of the content mapped to the Arc and curriculum has been created by and for students grounded in research that demonstrates learning from near-peers is essential to college and career success. REACH uses the Chicago Scholars' theory of change grounded in "mirrors" where students can see themselves, people who look like them, and who share their lives experiences doing the work they hope to do, and "windows" to build connection and social networks to with those who have different lived experiences.

The Chicago Scholars program is also currently undergoing a randomized control trial with the University of Chicago Chapin Hall. 

THE TECH:

The technology begins with establishing a Navigator Mastery Model (NMM) that structures the learning space, so it can represent all learning elements such as competencies, learners, resources, assessments, and learning goals, in a consistent manner. We then use AI to a) understand the learner; b) generate pathways; and c) provide an AI-tutor to make prompts and nudges to students and instructors and answer questions. 

Our entire approach to personalized learning uses AI in a structured learning space and operationalizes the science of learning.  The three elements of AI, algebraically structured learning space, and science of learning is what produces recommendations that are accepted 80% or more of the time and are very effective. 

Gooru has anonymized and consented data sets. Gooru leverages the researchers that it works with to provide us with trained models. Subsequently, as our users engage with our tool, we generate data that we own and will work with Gooru's team to develop proprietary AI models.

Gooru's learning modules are being mapped to the STEMuli video game world where students can build custom avatars, explore careers, meet mentors, and earn points and rewards for completing both in-game and real-life tasks. 

Check out this second demo video: 

Racial justice, equity, accessibility, diversity, and inclusion (READI) is core to Chicago Scholars’ and Reach Pathways’ strategies and infused into all that we do. Chicago Scholars integrated READI into the strategic plan launched in 2019 and developed READI values in 2020 (www.chicagoscholars.org/READI).

A full summary of the Chicago Scholars READI policies and practices is https://prezi.com/i/exzxv4kafxgk/cs-dei-one-pager/ and https://prezi.com/view/zJJ1HlTpLQ0EjCDKLB3J/. Chicago Scholars was a finalist for the SXSW Innovation Awards in the Rising DEI Workplace category, 2023 Best Companies Group Inclusive Workplace, and 2020 Crain’s Best Places to Work.

Reach Pathways has adopted all Chicago Scholars' READI values, policies, and practices. REACH is integrating  READI values by hiring a paid contractual Scholar Advisory Council to review and provide feedback on the design of the platform twice a week, as well as providing content for the platform and connecting with their peers to collect feedback. We are also reviewing all content from a READI lens. 

We expect all of our partners, contractors, vendors, and staff to commit to our READI values. We have a diverse staff reflective of the students we serve and we are committed to continuing to grow a diverse staff, partners, and board who understand what it means to be "the only" person in the room with their unique lived experience and identity.

REACH is a career pathways ecosystem connecting HiPURS, the colleges that want them on their campuses, the companies that want to hire them, and the communities that want to support them. REACH is a multi-sided marketplace.

REACH provides products and services to HiPURS, which includes academically ambitious, BIPOC, first-generation college students, and those from low-income and under-resourced communities across the country. To reach its target markets, REACH uses a multi-faceted marketing strategy that varies by stakeholder, including B2C, B2B, and B2B to C marketing strategies. For HiPURS, the design is based on student-directed content and feedback to provide a supportive virtual community, internship and mentorship opportunities, and career advancement resources.

REACH generates revenue through various markets, including a corporate recruiter license fee, ads and marketing, and community licenses. Companies and colleges can pay an annual fee to access curated candidate recommendations, post jobs, and build a community with candidates. They can also create custom logos, campuses or offices, or even clothing lines in the metaverse. Community licenses are available for colleges, nonprofit organizations, and high schools to provide REACH to their students for a nominal fee.

According to REACH's TAM, SAM, and SOM analysis, there are 1.6 million HiPURS and their support networks per year that could benefit from Reach Pathways, and the serviceable observable market is $500M, just for companies seeking diverse talent. REACH's beta app has already achieved a 90% adoption rate among high school students and their mentors. The business plan and revenue model have been independently reviewed by McKinsey and PwC.

REACH provides a platform for HiPURS to access resources and support to succeed in college and career. They generate revenue through various markets, including corporate recruiter license fees, ads and marketing, and community licenses. Their business plan and revenue model have been reviewed by McKinsey and PwC.

This pitch gives more information about the business model.

We plan to sustain Reach Pathways with the following funding sources:

• Licensing the product to companies and colleges to access diverse talent for the companies and campuses
• Licensing the product to colleges and community organizations to support their students
• Allowing companies and colleges to purchase ads, build custom buildings, insert their logos into the world and other marketing opportunities
• Grants and pitch competitions
• Equity financing through impact investing

We have used the MATH Venture Partners Financial Model templates and guides to build a financial model for Reach Pathways. PwC and McKinsey conducted pro bono projects to assess our revenue model and both assessments recommended a tiered annual license fee for companies to access diverse, high-performing talent on REACH. PwC also recommended contracts with colleges to promote admissions into both undergraduate and graduate programs. We have also begun a dialogue with college partners to provide persistence support to first-generation and pell-eligible students on college campuses.

LotisBlue Consulting created an interactive PowerBI tool of our total addressable market of both users and companies to support a sale and marketing strategy.

Chicago Scholars also has a network of thousands of volunteers, mentors, alumni in their careers and college, corporate, and community partners. While most Edtech products struggle to get even 1 meeting with companies and colleges, our co-CEOs are meeting with colleges and companies across the nation every week to talk about REACH and how it can meet national needs. Our goal is to leverage this network to scale REACH.

We are preparing for a pre-seed funding round to launch in the summer 2023 to support the growth of Reach Pathways as a spin-off entity from Chicago Scholars to rapidly scale the product. We also plan to continue to apply for grant opportunities (such as U.S. government-funded SBIR program and others).

Chicago Scholars summer internship program has raised $300,000 annually and our college partnership tiers have generated $140,000 in the last year. This revenue demonstrates a demand for the talent that Chicago Scholars is able to identify and cultivate. One of our college partners is budgeting for our platform for the next school year. We are assessing how the summer internship program can transition to the REACH platform in 2024 to further test the business model.

To date, we have raised $600,000 in grants, corporate giving, and donations to support the growth, scale, and development of the REACH platform from individuals, Madison Dearborn Partners, Verizon, and others. We are also a finalist in the Tools Competition and will be pitching for $50,000 on May 18. We won the SXSW Pitch Competition in the Future of Work category with a $4,000 prize.