PROJECT LADDER:

Minority youth seldom have the opportunity to get summer internships that provide a
meaningful learning experience. Consequently, their exposure to a professional work
environment and possible career paths is severely limited. Internships not only exposes the
students to a professional environment and provides more substance to their college applications.
It also helps the students to hone their self-confidence and acquire new skills. Equally important,
it is at this time when ideas about a career begin to germinate. Without this valuable experience,
minority youth generally lag behind their white counterparts in key areas that influence future
success, such as developing self- confidence and a professional network that will help catapult
their career after graduation. The impact of these delays is evident in the large number of young
minority college graduates who are working for subsistence wages that are significantly below
what their degrees promise or spent years climbing the corporate ladder to be promoted to
management level. Based on s study conducted by Center for Economic and Policy Research, in
2013, 12.4% of recent black graduates age 22 to 27 were jobless compared to 4.9% among
whites.
Making internships available to a student simply allows entry to a company. To maximize
the learning opportunity while navigating a corporate culture inundated with policies and
procedures and unspoken rules is a daunting process even for mature professionals. Without
proper guidance and genuine support, minority youth are often overwhelmed, intimidated and
discouraged as they stumble through their internship experience. Mentorship has proven to be an
effective mechanism in providing the support and coaching needed to advance the professional
and personal development of an individual. This is of particular importance for minorities. Based
on a survey of 32 African American executives conducted for the article Cracking the Corporate
Code: The Revealing Success Stories of 32 African American Executives (2003) 73% of African
American executives who reported having informal mentors at work had faster salary and total
compensation growth than those without an informal mentor. There is clearly a direct
correlation between having mentors and career and salary growth.
The goal of Project Ladder is to prepare minority college graduates to have fair and equal
chances of succeeding in their careers as their white counterparts. This will be achieved by
placing high school students in their junior and senior years in internship programs at major
corporations through their high school and college years. While in their internship program, we
will match them to a mentor at the corporation who will help them develop a career road map
that will improve their odds in finding meaningful employment post college graduation and
ultimately advancement to managerial positions. We believe that mentorship would be more
effective if the student and the mentor share certain life experiences. Therefore we will make
every effort to match the mentor to the student by race and gender.
Project Objectives:
1. Develop strategic partnerships with corporations to support their diversity programs by
creating internship pipelines for high school students of color.
2. Collaborate with public schools, youth development organizations, and youth mentors to
present opportunities for minority youth to excel academically and to achieve personal and
professional growth and development.
3. Cultivate corporate and personal social responsibility that focuses on supporting students of
color in developing and embarking on career paths through internship opportunities and
mentorship.
4. Establish a mentoring network consisting of minority mentors in companies and in the
community to share lessons learned and to recruit additional mentors of color to support the
work of Project Ladder.
Committed Families Family support plays a significant role in building character and
perseverance for the youth. A stable, secure, and safe home environment is critically important
for the student to thrive and succeed. Prior to enrolling the student into Project Ladder, parents or
guardians of the student must commit to providing the necessary support to enable the student to
fully participate in the internship program.
Student Recruitment.
We will initially recruit students who reside in New York City and Lower Westchester. In the
early phase of the project implementation, we will collaborate with youth development
organizations in minority communities to identify students. Students recommended by these
organizations will be interviewed to determine their readiness for the internship and their area of
interest. All students placed in the Project Ladder internship will be socially and academically
well-prepared to participate in the program. As the program expands, we will collaborate with
public schools to identify students.
Student Support:
KFL will reimburse each student the cost of transportation to their work site.