About Us
Mission
The College Success Collaborative (CSC) represents a growing network of organizations and teams committed to the retention, graduation, and overall success of our first-generation, low-income college student population.
The CSC meets monthly to discuss challenges, collaborate on joint programming, and share resources and best practices. The goal of the CSC is to optimize our impact on the communities we serve individually by investing in the overall health of our shared non-profit ecosystem.
What We Do
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Identify and interview organizations that provide college access, college support, and/or scholarships to better understand the ecosystem currently providing scholarships to first-gen, low-income Bay Area students.
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Convene professional and volunteer leadership to share insights, identify areas of collaboration, and serve as a coordinating body for nonprofits who wish to move forward with more intentional partnerships.
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Begin collaboration: Current collaboration include a summer conference serving 200+ FLI students. Long-term projects include creating a common scholarship application and increasing the scope of our gatherings.
Aspirational Goals
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Foster Continued Collaboration
Enhance student services by jointly offering mentoring and tutoring programs, student and parent study groups, college resources and university partnerships, skill building workshops, etc.
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Streamline Operations
Lower overhead costs and expand programs by sharing expensive software programs that track and support students with more centralized infrastructure, e.g., HR, finance, fundraising, marketing, etc.
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Expand Fundraising Efforts
Develop fund-raising goals that support member organizations and drive higher success rates for donor stewardship.
History
Silicon Valley has many excellent organizations working to guarantee that high school graduates from underserved and under-represented communities have access to college and the necessary support to make college graduation a reality. The good work that is being done is typically supported by private philanthropy, and those resources can be limited.
Aware of the potential for more collaboration, connection and coordination between organizations, the College Success Collaborative was formed to create space for programs to connect, learn together, and be in community. Specifically, the CSC:
Shares resources,
Streamlines programming, and
Builds a larger community of college-bound students who serve as a support for one another.
Started in 2021 by a Bay Area donor, the CSC now meets monthly. We are currently a dozen nonprofit leaders who provide scholarships to first-gen students entering college. The group’s first and ongoing collaboration is a summer conference that began June 2021, and it has been our signature event ever since.
Our Summer Conference, which in 2023 hosted more than 200 FLI students (45% year over year growth), spent a Saturday at Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton, CA connecting, networking and learning from experts around financial success, job interviews, resume writing, mental health, immigration reform and more.
Other past events include a Virtual Internship workshop in fall 2022, and our first ever staff retreat in February 2023 to discuss strategy and vision for the CSC in the next school year, focusing on career preparation and social connection. Stay tuned for more information about the next CSC Summer Conference on June 22, 2024.
