Powering Solutions from Those Who Know the Problems Best
See how Acceleration Group is helping to fuel innovative, bottom-up solutions at RiseBoro Community Partnership, Bushwick’s largest non-profit employer.
Pushing Sustainability Forward
Eban Goodstein, the Director of Bard College’s MBA in Sustainability, recently wrote on what makes a successful Sustainable MBA program. Dr. Goodstein argues that the classic, academic measure of peer-reviewed faculty publications doesn’t necessarily lead to a robust program aimed at sustainable solutions for business. Instead, he writes, by building a faculty of sustainable business leaders, that real-time experience will fuel the next generation of sustainable solutions aimed at changing the world for the better.
One of the faculty members mentioned in Dr. Goodstein’s piece is Acceleration Group’s Managing Director, Alejandro Crawford. As the program’s Entrepreneurship Professor, Alejandro and the Acceleration Group team implemented the RebelBase platform to power Bard’s Disrupt to Sustain Competition, the program’s annual pitch competition. See the results of this year’s competition on RebelBase.
To read Dr. Goodstein’s piece in its entirety, click here, and to learn more about RebelBase, visit its home here.
Forbes | Tom Gold Proves We Can Teach Entrepreneurship
Our Director of Research talked with Forbes contributor, Derek Newton, about developing a tool for measuring entrepreneurial capabilities and its potential for fueling job growth. Read the piece here.
Supporting the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
In a joint publication for the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship and EY, Acceleration Group’s Research Director, Tom Gold, lays out the components of the Entrepreneurial Mindset, and how it can be used to shape and support the future of work as we know it. Read and download the brief through the link below.
Measuring the Entrepreneurial Mindset
In his paper for the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship, Acceleration Group’s Research Director, Tom Gold, and Sophia Rodriguez set the stage for identifying, measuring, and solidifying the Entrepreneurial Mindset among today’s youth. Read the paper’s introduction below and see the link beneath it for the full paper.
Increasingly, the global economy demands that young people enter the workforce not only with a college degree, but also with a set of transferrable, entrepreneurial skills and attitudes that can help them succeed in almost any job or industry. This includes the ability to take initiative and think on your feet, to critically solve problems, and to communicate effectively. Learning these and other skills that are part of the entrepreneurial mindset is central to becoming career-ready. As a result, entrepreneurial thinking has become the mantra for many organizations interested in preparing youth for the future.
But how do we assess whether young people are acquiring these crucial skills? Until now, there has been little research to guide efforts to accurately measure entrepreneurial mindset. During the last several years, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) has been working to fill this gap by developing and testing the Entrepreneurial Mindset Index (EMI)—a tool to measure the attitudes, behaviors and beliefs associated with being an entrepreneur. The EMI is currently in use with students in the NFTE entrepreneurship program in schools across the United States and abroad. This paper presents new findings about the utility, reliability and validity of the EMI, highlighting its potential as an innovative, effective assessment tool in the entrepreneurship education landscape.
Credentialing Entrepreneurs: How and Why
In his chapter for the Federal Reserve’s Investing in America’s Workforce, Acceleration Group’s Managing Director, Alejandro Crawford, explains why the creation of a credential for today’s entrepreneurs is not only possible, but necessary. Alejandro illustrates that, while we face a critical moment of job-creator loss, we have the technology to equip potential, new job-creators with the skills and evaluative tools to prove their entrepreneurial talent. To read the chapter, download below.
Today vs. Tomorrow [Podcast]
Listen to our Research Director, Tom Gold, discuss the current and future state of entrepreneurship education, including where it falls short and what we need to produce the next generation of young entrepreneurs.
Opportunities to Transform [Video]
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PUTTING THE “POWER” IN FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT
Challenge
The Need for Professionalized Financial Counseling
Effective financial counseling is vital in the face of economic challenges at all levels in our society – but had not been professionalized with a common set of standards and preparation. Working across multiple organizations nationally, we set out to create an approach that would professionalize financial counseling and institute a set of rigorous standards.
A Credential with Rigorous Standards
Specifically, we aimed to develop a recognized, portable professional credential for counselors embedded in community-based organizations, government agencies, educational institutions and other organizations. The charge was to: 1) create a standardized and rigorous financial education curriculum, 2) make the program scalable and replicable, and 3) enable financial counselors to empower their individual clients through education and knowledge/skills transfer.
Solution
Moving from Crisis to Stability
Acceleration Group’s co-founder Joyce Moy’s innovative approach to training financial counselors maximizes their ability to empower clients to move from crisis to stability. This empowerment represents the foundation for improved quality of life, financial security, career opportunities, wealth-generation, and self-sufficiency.
Giving People the Power to Make Choices
Acceleration Group addresses the counterproductive economic behaviors that keep communities from building wealth. These range from resource scarcity, which keeps people living in survival mode and not reaching beyond that, to associations of money with negative emotions and experiences. Our approach reframes the internal dialogue to create a deliberate and empowering mindset: it’s no longer about making sacrifices but about making choices. This emphasis is coupled with comprehensive and standardized financial education content that gives counselors real command of the financial, and regulatory levers affecting their clients.
Impact
Qualitative Impact – Professionalized Financial Counselors Nationally
To supercharge counselors’ effectiveness, the programs we implemented support training in the essential skills of financial literacy with powerful workshops in counseling, coaching and negotiation skills. Counselors hone these skills in role-plays of live counseling and negotiations situations and further their understanding of the impact of financial issues by reviewing current news and journal articles and media clips that illustrate the plight of citizens dealing with student loans, foreclosure, and having to work well beyond retirement age.
Quantitative Impact – Millions in Personal Balance Sheet Improvement
Acceleration Group’s approach and curriculum have been adopted by 14 cities nationally. In New York City alone, organizations that have adopted this approach have trained several hundred counselors. These counselors have served more than 25,000 clients, enabling low-income New Yorkers to amass savings of over $2.5M and reduce debt by $15M.
LEADING THE CHANGE IN BROOKLYN
Image © 2014 Florence Montmare
Opportunity
Strategy in the Face of Change
In 2014, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council (RBSCC), the largest nonprofit in Brooklyn, needed a new strategy to adapt to a fast-changing environment. While RBSCC’s name derives from its early work on behalf of senior citizens in Brooklyn, today it is a $100M-plus, multi-program agency providing social services for the community at all stages of life. The agency hired Acceleration Group to develop a comprehensive strategic plan and to facilitate innovation across its programs.
While RBSCC was instrumental in revitalizing Bushwick and creating the thriving neighborhood it is today, it faced an unprecedented set of challenges and opportunities. It needed to expand its impact and adapt to changing conditions while keeping this evolution rooted in its historical commitment to the community.
Achieving Inclusive Economic Development
The stakes were high, since success could mean the difference between gentrification as a displacing force, and inclusive economic development, where wealth was reinvested in the community, improving quality of life for all. RBSCC needed to set a course that would enable disparate segments of the population to participate fully in the benefits of change.
Solution
A Powerful Vision and Model
Acceleration Group developed a comprehensive program to enable RBSCC to lead and define the change, rather than simply react to it. We worked with stakeholders throughout the organization to articulate the agency’s core vision of “somewhere to go, someone to become, dignity for our elders.” We then advised the executive team and board in developing a comprehensive program that applied this vision to changing conditions, and set a course to lead the change in the New York City of today.
Capturing Resources Behind the Model
Internally, formerly siloed programs are now integrated, and externally, RBSCC has forged powerful relationships throughout the ecosystem. This has meant identifying and connecting key players, innovating new programs, stimulating cross-program collaboration, and laying the groundwork for diversified funding, All of this has contributed to RBSCC’s articulation, development and proving of a comprehensive model for inclusive economic development.
Impact
Dots Connected
Our strategy helped RBSCC lead and define the change, identify and connect key partners in the ecosystem to multiply its impact, and open new opportunities for funding. Today, RBSCC is distinguished by collaboration and innovation across its programs. Many social service programs respond to crises without addressing underlying causes; by contrast, RBSCC looks comprehensively at providing the support to allow families and businesses to thrive.
The Conditions for the Community to Thrive
For families, this means stable, affordable housing, sustainable financial and personal health, pathways to meaningful and quality employment and economic advancement, and care for young and the old. For businesses, this means the reinvesting of wealth and developing the local talent pool. RBSCC is leading the way through its environmental and next-generation infrastructure, creating the community of the 21st century and beyond.