welcome to the secrets of college planning on the host anthony and today we're going to get some insight into the foundation's my guest today is melissa bryant and she is the executive director for the give something back foundation and welcome to the show t high school i grew up in southern new jersey and went to sialic high school and didn't do very well straight after in ninth grade and i really just didn't think that i was college material and then when i was fifteen years old i had a volunteer opportunity at a homeless shelter that mentor encouraged me to go to the orlando union rescue mission for battered women and children in orlando where i was living at the time and i got to the shelter and met a handful of homeless kids who were not going to school because they didn't have been have birth certificates immunization records they didn't have a permanent address so they struggled to even enroll in school and it really made me rethink my education so i walked out of that shelter after one volunteer experience and meeting a handful of kids who weren't even able to go to school and i never failed another class and made a commitment after that first experience to really take full advantage of my education and to see how far i could go w what a true yeah so so how does one go from going to college at american university to executive director to give you something back sure so give back is a national organization that has a scholarship program in seven states including new jersey and our program is focused on providing full  room board and tuition scholarships to students who face adversity whether they're aging out of foster care or they're dealing with the incarceration of a parent or homelessness we really try to support students who but for our scholarship  our support probably would not go to college so that's something that i personally relate to it's a path that i've walked in my own life and it's what you know i have a lot of experience working with students who had similar experiences to me and it's just a passion of mine so what what was the path that you took when you graduated from american university so i went straight to law school after college i went to the university of denver college of law and there i focused on nonprofit law and on child advocacy law so i represented abused and neglected children in court and then you know the trajectory of my career has really been working in different contexts but always with children and families who struggle with you know different kinds of adversity whether it's poverty or abuse and helping them get the tools and resources they need to improve their lives so how did the foundation start to actually started the foundation so bob carr when he was in high school as a senior he received a two hundred fifty dollars scholarship from the lockport women's club and bob's parents weren't supportive of his desire to go to college and so when he received a scholarship he was really encouraged by it and it gave him sort of the wherewithal to pursue the college path and he committed at that point that if he ever achieved success in life that he would give back in the same way by providing scholarship opportunities to other young folks and he did become very successful he built heartland payment systems from a two million dollar company into a four point three billion dollar enterprise and sold heartland and started a new company called beyond and he's used the proceeds of his success to help pre fund over thirty five million dollars in scholarships and seven states through twenty six partner universities so how does the how does the foundation actually work where do you find the kids and how do you fund  is it a full scholarship for your college it is so we identify partner universities and we prepay for a number of academic years or scholarships at those schools and then we begin to identify students as young as possible usually in the ninth grade and we identify students who have academic promise we target community based organizations that are working with populations that are struggling with different issues like organizations that work with children in foster care we go to women's prisons and different correctional facilities and we'll go pod to pod and ask the parents fair to identify their students who have academic promise and then we reach out to students and we work with guidance counselors and schools and they were just looking for students  is there an application for there's an application process and people can learn about that application process and give back that and cio which is our web site and there's a financial eligibility requirements students need to be low income and then they complete an application that's similar to the college application process part of what we do is we invite students to participate in the application process so they get a good sense of what it's like to actually apply for college yeah so when when you get these students do you help them in any way or the students get any help yeah so we become involved in the students lives and we match students with mentors or with and with community based organizations it's like big brothers big sisters or first start which is a college prep program for foster youth we try to identify organizations in the community that are working with the students that we're investing in and make those matches so when the student gets funded  and they go to schools do you keep in touch with the students when they go to these university we are keeping in touch with the students part of what we're doing is tracking their graduation rates so we are tracking students through high school and then through college ok and once you said do you are in seven states you're going to be in all fifty states of entry i think our goal is to be in all fifty states so bob has started a new company called beyond and it's similar to his previous company and give back is the beneficiary of his ownership stake in the company so it's really a social venture that he's created it's growing rapidly  he has over five hundred employees in the company was started on may first two thousand and seventeen it's very rapid growth and his agenda is to build this company to spend more kids to college and to expand the program so what's an average amount that that a student is getting to go to school in the thirty forty thousand all right so the scholarship itself is a prepaid scholarship to the the student to become a part of our program can go to any of those schools and receive full room board intuition for four years while it's great now you you go into each one of the poverty stricken type of areas and am i correct maybe newark camden patterson just in new jersey what are the other states that you're doing sure so we work in new jersey we work in delaware we have the university of delaware as a partner college where in pennsylvania new york kansas illinois and california and when you're working in those particular poverty stricken areas you have people like go there they go to high schools and give them a presentation how do you how you just finding those kids other than just going to the incarcerated prisons and sure we reach out to generation scholars college students go to college for many of our students they're the first to go and so the support that we provide in helping students make sure they're taking a college prep course load in navigating the financial aid process in making good college decisions i think we are instrumental in that process and we talk to lots of parents  mentors or whoever the caring adult is in the child's life bob has also written two books through the fires and working class to college and working class to college is really a great book for any parent or student who's considering the college process because the book outlines lots of tips and tools to make a good decision and to navigate that process affectively did you  sure so one of the tips in the book is to to value the community college pathway so this year we signed on our first community college partner role in college at gloucester county and the partnership still empowers our students to get a bachelor's degree in four years in partnership with rowan university but it's such it's a cheaper pathway because rohan college is able to provide the first two years at a discounted rate so you know we encourage students to to go to community college or to go to treat school or to take the path that makes the most economic sense for them and t really consider economics when making a decision because you know there's students who will go out of state and pay an exorbitant amount of to ishan room in fees at a university you know ten states away without any sense of what they want to do with their lives or what career path they want to pursue drop out and have thirty thousand in debt in less than a year and the never get a bachelor's degree so it's really important that students make an echo and economic decision at the college decision is an economic decision and community college something t promote so you so you work with force the kids and kids of the incarcerated parents what do you see as the characteristics of these students both academically maybe extracurricular activity type ones is do you see some type of difference compared to the mainstream america kids so foster youth have a three percent college attainment rate nationally and half end up homeless or incarcerated within two years of aging l children of incarcerated mothers have an even lower college attainment rate so statistically speaking these are students who are not thriving and they're not getting a college education so that's what the statistics say now we personally work with foster youth and children whose mothers are incarcerated and what we see and find is that when the students are given the opportunity and the support of kerry adults and the promise of a college education that they are exemplary leaders and that they work as hard in school if not harder than any other students and that they are dynamic compassionate intelligent wieters and we do find that they have academic gaps based on maybe being in six different foster placements and and shifting schools and having instability in their lives but just like any young person if they receive the support that they deserve and their lives are stabilized and they're supported they go on to achieve great things the the the extra curricular activities you see any of those students that they play sports absolutely we have students who are in one of our students is the drum major of her band another so many of our students are national honor society they participate in service projects and service learning a group of our scholars created projects a website and public service announcement to raise awareness about youth and mental health challenges and they put together kindness kits in partnership with lady gaga was born this way foundation to  present comfort and support to younger foster youth so our kids are involved any students that are desiring to go to college and just live a a full life are engaged in service our students are no different so how many of your students already graduated from college we have in new jersey no students that have graduated from college yet but nationally about us about seventy give something back scholars have graduated from college through the program and where do you see them taking their path in the seventy people when they graduate what are they doing they're doing all kinds of things and we have doctors we have lawyers we have nonprofit executives teachers all of our scholars who have graduated from our program are employed and half of them are mentors for our program so what's the future of the foundation and what it will do you see it going i think that we will continue to prioritize the most at risk students so children who have incarcerated moms and dads and foster youth homeless kids i think that our future is to continue to expand and we have many prepaid seats left to fill so we're going to be identifying students for the next few years and then as beyond grows give back will grow so i think that give back and beyond will evolve as a very powerful model for how communities businesses nonprofits schools students how everybody can work together to improve outcomes for the this population of young people to shoot with a lot of companies do a lot of companies work with foundations and thank you i guess a portion of their profits to foundations i think that corporate social responsibility has become the norm in america and i think there's many companies that give a percentage of their profits or they do regular campaigns to support charities or they have a dedicated foundation i think what is different about beyond is that bob's entire state the founding the the charity were actually a public charity and not a foundation but the public charity  is the beneficiary of that ownership stake and so it's i think it's probably one of the largest financial services social ventures in history  how does one even go about developing something let's see if there is a student out there that wants to develop a charity of some sort is there a path that that someone takes or do you just come up with an idea and say ok i want to create a charity i think that the first thing to do especially for young people is to pick it once they've identified their area of passion or what they want to achieve whether there's a local charity or a national charity that they can plug into and maybe do an internship or do their project under someone's auspices because starting a nonprofit is like starting any business and ninety percent of it is the administrative side in the filings in the legal and the financial and i usually encourage young people to work with existing charities and do a project within them or there's many organizations like the shoka or youth service america where young people can get apply for many grants to do projects you can do projects through their schools they can do through their places of worship and local organizations and just get started you know it's very interesting just the whole aspect of charities in itself i find that a lot of students want to do different types of charities in high school and there are always trying to look for a new way of care of doing some kind of charity so that's why i asked that question to find out you know how the path is so what you're saying is that it really is like be opening up a business of its own it is so this filing that has to be done with it with the us right u s government state local state and federal you are starting a business and so i think that the best thing for young people to do is to start volunteering in the area that they're passionate about make sure that it's something that they want to do long term because you don't start a nonprofit unless you plan to do something long term and what's the what's the difference between starting a business and starting a nonprofit is it just that the nonprofit can't make  money well the nonprofit can make money but one hundred percent of the money that's a nonprofit makes is reinvested into its mission so you know their own there's no owner of a nonprofit there's a board and the money isn't any profits that are generated or revenue it can't benefit the individuals that work for the nonprofit it has to go back to the mission and that's that that money then goes  whatever they're doing as the charity right the services that they provide or the awareness that they're raising so now those those the charity like like to give back to give something back do they have different aspects to the charity like when students come there to learn about essay writing or a c t prep courses or something like that is there extra things that you're doing with the students are scholars  receive access to programming so we do essay writing we do we bring our students on to college campuses and do college tours we do an etiquette dinner to teach at all kinds of things with our scholars things that they've identified over the years as valuable to them and you know we just helped get him ready for school make sure they're ready for college wel get to those parents i would say that one thing that's very positive this to to volunteer together as a family and to just encourage students to to get involved and it's important in the college process it gives you life skills business skills helps you identify what you're passionate about you know volunteer in as much as much like job experience as anything else and you can apply whatever your skills and talents are to whatever cause you care about it's a great free valuable way to expose students  things that are going to help shape who they are and what they want to do with their lives and it has the added benefit of helping people in need right well thank you very much for coming on the show thanks for having me so you've been watching the