Build

BUILD is a four-year college access and readiness program with a focus on serving students from under-resourced communities. Our student BUILDers often fail to see the relevance of their education to their lives, and have become academically disengaged. Data shows that the students we serve are those at highest risk of dropping out of high school.

BUILD starts in the ninth grade as an in-school, credit-bearing elective so that we can reengage students before they decide that school holds little value for them.

By helping students launch and run their own small businesses, BUILD supplements traditional school with real-world experience. Entrepreneurship is the hook, but college is the goal. All of our business and academic activities foster student proficiency in 21st Century skills which prepare our students for college and the workforce.

We are currently serving more than 1,400 students nationwide in the San Francisco Bay Area, Metro DC and Greater Boston. BUILD is launching in New York City in the fall of 2016 and in Los Angeles in 2017.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, over 950 students from Oakland, East Palo Alto, Redwood City, and San Jose are served at our ten partner schools. They recceive weekly mentorship from 270 local professionals. 

Since its founding, BUILD has incubated over 1000 student businesses, and since 2012, 97% of students completing the BUILD program have graduated from high school and 98% of those graduates have been accepted to at least one postsecondary option.