How Cross-Sector Partnerships Help Adult Learners Return, Persist, and Complete Their Degrees:

Changing Higher Ed podcast 265 with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Malik Brown

Transcript: Changing Higher Ed podcast  265 – with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Malik Brown

Introduction to Changing Higher Ed^®

Welcome to Changing Higher Ed^®, a podcast dedicated to helping higher education leaders improve their institutions. With your host, Dr. Drumm McNaughton, CEO of The Change Leader, a consultancy that helps higher ed leaders holistically transform their institutions. Learn more at changinghighered.com. And now, here’s your host, Drumm McNaughton.

[00:00:20] Guest Introduction and Overview

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you, David. My guest today is Malik Brown, CEO of Graduate Philadelphia, an institution that drives strategic partnerships across sectors to advance adult degree attainment, workforce readiness, and inclusive economic development. Graduate Philly supports adult and non-traditional learners at the intersection of skills and schools in an integrated way, and involves all stakeholders, i.e., higher education institutions, workforce development, employers, and the community, to support transformative learning and drive inclusive economic growth.

Malik’s career includes work in finance and customer relationship management at organizations like Inroads, Accenture, and the United Way. And he joins me today to talk about Graduate Philadelphia, the services it offers, and how higher ed institutions can create the partnerships and infrastructure needed to attract and support the 41.7 million people who have dropped out of higher ed.

Malik, welcome to the program.

Malik Brown: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Drumm McNaughton: It’s my pleasure. I am looking forward to a great conversation.

[00:01:34] Malik Brown’s Career Journey

Drumm McNaughton: You’ve been doing nonprofits for a long time in your career. Pretty much all of it, other than just little bits here and there. You’re the CEO of Graduate Philadelphia right now. Give us a little bit of background because what you’re doing in Philadelphia with the partnerships between multiple higher education institutes there with industry, you’re really tapping into the workforce development and helping people get back on their feet. So, please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Malik Brown: Sure. So I’ll just start with a brief introduction. Again, thank you so much for having me today. It’s a pleasure to be with you and your audience. A little bit about myself, as you said, I’ve spent the better part of my career in nonprofit. I did start actually in the private sector, so I was with corporate brands like General Electric and Accenture, for the early part of my professional career, and then transitioned over to the nonprofit. Worked at the United Way, worked at a community-based organization in South Philadelphia, called Diversified Community Services. Worked in higher education at Pierce College, and then really found a sweet spot here, with graduate Philadelphia, which really is a combination of all these different experiences.

[00:02:46] Graduate Philadelphia’s Mission and Services

Malik Brown: A little bit about Graduate Philadelphia, as you mentioned in your opening remarks. We are a 501c3 corporation that serves non-traditional adult learners.

These are adults who are working on the front lines of various occupations here in Philadelphia. They went through the K through 12 pipelines in public school education in Philadelphia. They’re raising a family. They’re working during the day, trying to go to school in the evening, and they just need a little bit of extra help and support to get them over the finish line to a two- or four-year degree.

And that’s where Graduate Philadelphia comes in, to provide those wraparound services, that holistic support, the advising and the coaching that’s needed to get someone back into the classroom and then to completion of that credential.

Drumm McNaughton: Wow, that’s big, that is huge. And knowing the enrollment cliff is coming, or it’s essentially here at this point, so the number of traditional students is dropping out. There are 41.7 million students who have dropped out, and we all know the most expensive college degree is the one that you don’t get. So you’re focused on these non-trads.

[00:04:00] Challenges Faced by Adult Learners

Drumm McNaughton: Why do folks drop out? Why do they drop out of college?

Malik Brown: It’s a great question, and thank you for citing the national data point. We have a lot of great organizations like the Lumina Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, that have done amazing work in this space. But to your question around “why do students drop out?” from our vantage point, we are a data-centric organization, we try as much as possible, both qualitative and quantitative data, to really understand the needs of those whom we serve. And from what we’ve been able to ascertain, it really comes down to five or six reasons why adults drop out.

Number one, it’s around affordability, right? So we’re working with our college and university partners to find ways to make college more affordable, to make higher education more affordable.

There’s also the issue of childcare. We know that many of the students that we serve are actually single parents and single guardians. And sometimes, as the cliche goes, it takes a village to raise a child, and sometimes, with that person only having themselves, it’s hard to both raise that child or children and work and go to school at the same time.

The other piece is around transportation, and that’s why you’re seeing more colleges and universities offer hybrid models that allow a student to go to a traditional classroom, but also to participate online. And then we also see issues sometimes around food insecurity, we see issues around housing insecurity, and then we also see some behavioral health issues that pop up from time to time.

And I imagine that if you look across the country at other organizations who are doing similar work to Graduate Philadelphia, I would imagine that those same four or five issues are very prevalent in those communities as well.

Drumm McNaughton: And I would imagine digital connectivity is also an issue, especially for online.

Malik Brown: That’s exactly right. We’ve improved that here in Philadelphia. There are a lot of great companies in Philadelphia and philanthropic organizations that are focusing on digital connectivity. But you are correct. That is an issue for some families.

We’ve had situations where an adult learner is trying to do their homework on their mobile device. They don’t have a laptop, they don’t have a desktop computer, so we find both hardware and connectivity issues. In some cases, they might have a tablet, but they have really slow internet connection, right? So, that is an issue in which we do engage corporate foundation partners to address that digital literacy and digital connectivity need.

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you for that segue, because that was perfect, talking about your corporate partners.

[00:06:39] Graduate Philadelphia’s Role and Partnerships

Drumm McNaughton: Tell us about Graduate Philly, because you’re, in many respects, you’re a connector, you’re an ombudsman between local colleges and the services that non-traditional students need. So, tell us a little bit about that, please.

Malik Brown: Great question. As you said, we really do serve as an intermediary between the non-traditional adult learner and the college and university community. And so we provide a number of services that essentially connect those two communities.

So, as an example, a number of our college and university partners are looking for support around enrollment. They’re looking for support in terms of going into communities of color, diverse communities where there may be a lack of cultural competency, or there may be some support needed for how do we message academic credentialing and workforce credentialing to communities of color, where for them as an adult, they’re not looking for a traditional 18 to 21-year-old experience.

They’re really looking for opportunities to upskill and reskill so that they can achieve a greater level of economic mobility for themselves and their family. So the messaging has to be different when you’re talking to an adult versus when you’re talking to a student who might be going off to a four-year institution for the first time.

We also support things around career services. You have some colleges and universities that are pretty adept at engaging with the business community, at engaging with employers to hire students, and to do some joint collaboration and programming with the business community.

But you have other colleges and universities that are not as adept in that space, and so Graduate Philadelphia also facilitates some of the connectivity and relationship building between the colleges and the business community. At the end of the day, it serves the adult learner because if that college has really strong relationships with the business community, that means more job opportunities for our students. It means more internship and apprenticeship opportunities for the students.

And then lastly, I would say just the academic advising, coaching, and support. So many students drop out because they just don’t have that extra layer of support that can keep them moving forward. Days where they might get exhausted, days where they may not think that they can do it, they can’t push on. That’s where Graduate Philadelphia is that extra layer of support to that college or university to help with retention, to help with persistence, and to help with completion, for that student getting over the finish line.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, it’s interesting because you mentioned all of these services, and in my experience in higher ed, there are very few colleges that can offer all of those? You are, you’re a multiplier is what you are, is you’re taking these services from all around the community, you’re working with the colleges and you’ve got relationships with what, about 20 different colleges there in Philadelphia. Right?

Malik Brown: At our highest watermark, yes. In the history of graduate Philadelphia, some of it predating my time as CEO, I would say the highest watermark has been around 20 colleges and universities. Today we have, a strong relationship and an actual scope of services and MOU, with about 15 different colleges and universities. And these are colleges who serve adult learners. They have programs that are tailored and customized to meet the needs of adult learners. And what we’ve tried to do is, we try to have a really relationship centric type of agreement with our college and university partners.

As we know in nonprofits, we throw around the word partnership a lot. We throw around the word collaboration a lot. But for us, we really do try to deepen that relationship, to have a MOU and a scope of services that looks at some shared agreements, some shared accountability and outcomes, and we really try to drive towards those outcomes.

Drumm McNaughton: What I’m thinking about is Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart, who was the chancellor at Amarillo College for many years, and now is at the Austin Community College and the district there. He had put together these kinds of services under the auspices of Amarillo College, creating the relationships with social services, creating the relationships with housing, all of those kind of things.

What you’re doing is you’re the collator; you’re the gatherer of all those services. You’ve got relationships with the community, you’ve got relationships for the colleges, and in many ways, you’re saving the college’s money, the university’s money, because they don’t have to build all these services or all these relationships. They’ve got you and graduate Philadelphia to do that. Am I right?

Malik Brown: That’s right. And in some cases it works better than others. And as an organization, as a 501c3 Enterprise, we’re always trying to perfect our model, to improve it, to make it more effective, to make it more efficient, so that we can bend that cost curve for our college and university partners. Or, alternatively, as long as we’re making sure that if the college is investing in a partnership with Graduate Philadelphia, they see a really strong ROI to their investment.

And to your point, there are certain areas where we are providing the direct service. So anything that has to do with advising and coaching for that adult learner to, sort of, navigate all the different stops and starts and roadblocks and pitfalls that might come along with re-enrollment and enrollment and persistence. We have what we call program specialists and post-secondary navigators that help that adult navigate, again, all the windy roads of actually returning and completing towards a credential.

But as you mentioned, there are other factors and other obstacles that may come up where we are not a direct service provider. So, as an example, if there is a need for food. If there’s a need for housing. If there’s a need for behavioral health. We actually have partners in our network that we then can connect our adult learners to so that they can get the holistic wraparound services support that they need in order to complete their credential.

Drumm McNaughton: That’s fabulous. One of the things that colleges and universities are struggling right now with is enrollment. 41.7 million folks have dropped out of college. What stops them from coming back?

Malik Brown: I think it’s a really good question. I think for many adult learners, I think there’s a fear factor. Right? So if you were enrolled, let’s say, at your local community college or one of your schools that provides night school or, classes in the evening. Maybe you did that in your early twenties. Right? And now you’re trying to come back to school 10, 15 years later, and the world has changed.

The classroom has changed; there’s now online instruction. There are online platforms and online learning management systems in which you now have to engage. For some learners that is a scary proposition. Right? To be able to sort of say, “okay, can I learn a new skill? Can I be comfortable in a digital environment?” The other pieces that we’ve sort of talked about already is that affordability is a really, really big thing.

So we know that many of our college and university partners are really trying to find ways to make college more affordable. And that’s where our philanthropic friends and our philanthropic community can also be of assistance because there’s a way that they can provide scholarships, they can also help to reduce institutional back balances that many of our adult learners have, and they also can help with the federal student loan defaults.

So, there’s a number of ways that our business partners, our philanthropic partners, our college partners, can play a role in reducing the financial burden that it costs to return to school. And that I would also say that, as I mentioned before, adults want to make sure that when they make an investment of time and energy and money that there’s going to be a return. Right?

They can’t afford to wait four or six years for a return. And so for them it’s, “okay if I can engage in an eight- or ten-week workforce development program that’s then stackable to a two-year degree program, how is that going to change my life? How is that going to change the trajectory of my life and the trajectory of my child’s life?”

And if they can, sort of, rationalize and reconcile that in their mind, to say that “this credential is going to lead to a higher wage job, it’s going to lead to a more lucrative career pathway”, then they engage in a more serious way. And that’s the work that Graduate Philadelphia tries to facilitate.

Drumm McNaughton: The other piece with that is enrollment process. It is particularly cumbersome in many respects, and I know that’s something that you guys help returning students with.

Malik Brown: Yes, the enrollment process is, as you know, could be very cumbersome. I remember, and I’m dating myself, but, more than 26 years ago, I was a freshman, in 1996, at a small liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts, and I just remember how daunting it was then filling out financial aid forms, filling out, admissions and pre-enrollment forms. And I’m not sure it’s gotten any better. And so, for many of these adults that is a hurdle to reengage.

And so if you, let’s say, are an incumbent worker, and let’s say you’re working at a job that offers tuition assistance or tuition reimbursement. Oftentimes many employees don’t even take advantage of that benefit because the enrollment process is so cumbersome and in some cases really exhausting. And so we try our very best to clear the brush, if you will, to make the enrollment process a little smoother, to connect our adult learners to some of the admissions and enrollment folks at our university partners. And just to try to walk them and hold their hand through the process, to make the whole process a little bit easier and smoother.

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you that is really important for folks. I can remember filling out applications years ago, and of course I did it 20 plus years before you did, you can just imagine now having to do that whole bloody thing on a computer versus a piece of paper. Of course, the enrollment process has changed, et cetera.

[00:17:05] Integrating Education and Workforce Development

Drumm McNaughton: I’d like to talk a little bit about how you’ve integrated education, workforce development, and career, because that also is one of the specializing, and you kind of gave a little segue to that about doing certificates and micro certificates to get people new skills to get back into the workforce.

Malik Brown: So this is really the value proposition for Graduate Philadelphia. Not just in Philadelphia, but for cities and communities across the country, you see really two very disparate systems. You have the higher education community in one bucket, and you have the workforce development community in another bucket. And some cases, if I’m talking about a third bucket, you have the economic development community in a third bucket.

And so what we’ve tried to do here at Graduate Philadelphia is say, “okay. If we are really going to increase economic mobility for more families, if we’re going to lower the poverty rate here in the city of Philadelphia, which is pretty high, we really need to meet families where they are, and we really need to understand the current economic context that we see ourselves in”.

So for so many families, again, they need a more immediate short-term intervention towards financial stability. And that’s why it’s really, really important that we integrate both workforce development credentialing as well as higher education. Because the workforce component really helps the financially stabilize many families. There are many great eight and ten week programs in cybersecurity, IT, health tech administration, retail, customer service, that really gets that individual or household to some level of financial stabilization. The next step beyond financial stabilization is to say, “okay, now that I am making, a living wage job that pays a self-sufficient wage, how can I now move further in my career to, perhaps, obtain a mid-skill occupation, to be a manager, to be a director somewhere”. And in most cases, not all, but in most cases, that managerial role or that mid-skill occupation role still requires at least a two year degree.

So we have said that it is not an either or value proposition, but it’s an and/both. Let’s stabilize families, let’s get them to a living wage, and then let’s create a bridge from that workforce credential into a two or four year degree program so that they can continue along in their career journey.

Drumm McNaughton: That is brilliant. You are the first person I’ve spoken to who has really looked at this from a, “what do people need, meet them where they are.” Trying to enroll that 41.7 million back into college when they’re struggling with food security, with housing security, mental health, all of the things that you talked about earlier. You’ve got to get them stabilized first to where they’re not struggling with so many things. There’s only so much you can fill in a pot of water, and if you fill it, if you overfill it, it’s going to flow out and it’s not going to be able to be drunk.

Malik Brown: Right.

Drumm McNaughton: Not drunk in the alcohol sense, of course.

Malik Brown: Yeah. Yeah.

Drumm McNaughton: But giving them that stabilizing effect, whether it be, a certification or a microcredential or something like that, and having the partnerships with industry to get folks to where they’re starting to make a living wage and they can also go back. That is the bridge that many folks need to get back, to get their degree, et cetera.

Malik Brown: And that’s right. And you said it best where it’s not just enough to help the person get the credential. There are other factors that leads to the self-sufficiency, and that’s a job. Right? So it’s really critical for workforce organizations, for educational nonprofits to really have strong relationships with the business community.

Have members of the business community on your board of directors, have them on your advisory board. Have them within your service delivery network, because once that student completes that certificate, they’re going to want, to actually get a, a living wage job.

The other component of that, in addition to the business community, is we want to have strong bridges between the workforce development community and the higher education community. Because if you complete a micro credential or a certificate or an industry recognized credential, that’s considered a workforce certification, we want to be sure that, in some cases, those certifications or credentials, are credit bearing. Right? So that if you then apply to a two year degree program, that two year degree program can say, “you know what, you just completed this IT certification, we’re going to afford you four or five credits towards a two-year degree program.

Now, that sometimes, I will be honest, is a tricky proposition. You have to work with the provost or the faculty chair of the various college that you’re working with. They have to do sort of a crosswalk of curriculum to make sure that it’s meeting certain academic standards. But it really is the secret sauce. If we can figure out that crosswalk between what folks are getting and learning and applying in their workforce program and make sure that it is credit bearing in some way towards a degree, that really can propel so many more students, to getting that two- or four-year degree.

Drumm McNaughton: And that you bring up such an important point, and that’s part of the impetus behind CBE competency-based education. To where life experiences, credentials, that sort of thing, can go to credits for your degree. That’s such a critical piece with it. So you’re giving them a bridge, you’re getting them credits to college, you’re getting them to a job. It requires a lot of work from an economic development perspective, from an industry perspective.

And then from a faculty perspective, when we talked a couple days ago, and you really leveraged your experience with Accenture when you were there. You get the adjuncts, they may be Accenture folks, they may be industry folks, whatever, but they’re part of the ones teaching these certificate programs to where they’re giving the students direct industry experience and a potential link into employment.

Malik Brown: That’s right. So, we are really fortunate to partner with Accenture. That corporation actually has representation on our board of directors locally. And as part of that relationship that we have with Accenture, we actually are able to leverage their global learning management system to share with our adult learners and our alumni.

And this global management learning system has over 150 courses, in really four distinct buckets, general business, IT, health tech and administration, and entrepreneurship. And then it has a number of other wraparound courses in terms of life skills, general business skills, customer service, team dynamics, communications, et cetera. And again, these courses are offered at no cost, to our customers. Now when we’re delivering these courses and this content, we found that it is really important to bring in folks from industry in order to deliver content that’s related to healthcare or related to IT, as two examples. And that’s where we have pulled on, as you just mentioned, we pull on adjuncts, who are both working in industry and also teaching, and so that’s a really sort of good combination because they understand what it means to provide instructional learning to adult learners. Right? So they understand sort of the adult learner, pedagogy. And then they also understand the practical lens of what it does it mean to actually work in business and work in industry. So we really try to pull on those volunteers to deliver our training.

The other piece is that we also attract folks that are not adjuncts, but are just some of our corporate partners. So here in Philadelphia, we’ve had Comcast, we’ve had Penn Medicine, we’ve had AmeriHealth, just a number of corporations here locally in Philadelphia that have given us volunteers to help teach some of these courses that are offered through Accenture’s LMS.

Drumm McNaughton: That is fabulous. Now tell me how many graduate, we call it Graduate Philadelphia or Graduate Philly. Okay. How many graduate “you name the city” programs are there out there?

Malik Brown: Yeah, so I am not sure how many sorts of similar models there are across the country. I do want to say that in a really big shout out to the co-founders of Graduate Philadelphia, you have folks like Hadash Scheffer, you have folks like Sally Glickman, David Thornberg. They were the original founders of Graduate Philadelphia back in 2005. And based on their early work, they were able to take this amazing concept of serving adult learners, and at the time, they coined the phrase “adult come backers”, and then really take that model to a national level. And at one point, and I don’t want to misspeak here, but I know that there were dozens of similar Graduate Philadelphia type of affiliates and offices across the country that were part of the graduate network brand, and that was sort of the parent umbrella company. So I don’t have an exact number, but I do know that there were at least several dozen, of these, sort of affiliates, across the country. And again, just a huge thank you and a huge give her flowers and the co-founders, their flowers for, just creating such an amazing vision.

And I was fortunate in 2020 to come onboard at a time where the parent company was looking to separate from the local model here in Philadelphia, and I became the inaugural President, CEO of Graduate Philadelphia, the separate 501c3 Corporation. And I always say to folks when I do conversations like this, that I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me. There were so many that have sort of paved the way, and that we were able to help write the next chapter of graduate Philadelphia’s story.

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you. If you were to go to a college and, a college had asked you, or university asked you, “what do we need to do to enroll more folks who have dropped out”? What would you tell them?

Malik Brown: I would tell them, one, we have to find ways to provide financial assistance. That is such a huge barrier. We have to provide ways to reduce institutional back balances. There are so many Philadelphians who can even re-enroll because they have a $500 back balance at their previous institution and therefore can’t even get their transcript in order to reapply or apply to another school. And for so many lower income families, $500 is a lot of money. Okay? So from that standpoint, how do we partner with the business community? How do we partner with the philanthropic community to reduce those institutional back balances?

The second piece is around, we have to make the content and the offerings and the product more relatable. So again, for the 18 to 21-year-old market, college is a laboratory. Right? It’s a sandbox, it’s a time to both enjoy your life as well as sort of have a coming of age story, to grow socially, emotionally, academically, and to really figure out, and take the time to figure out, sort of what you want to do when you grow up.

Right? When you are an adult who is 30, 40, 50 years old, you’re raising children, you’re going to work, you’re trying to make ends meet. You are really looking for a solution that will allow you to achieve your piece of the American Dream. Your piece of, whatever it is that is your career or life aspiration, and that’s where we have to make the products and the services that colleges offer more relatable and relevant to the needs of the adult learner.

Drumm McNaughton: Maek, you bring up some really good points with this, and it makes me wonder, can higher ed institutions do this on their own? Do they need to partner with a 501c3 outside of the institution, or should this be something to be done through if they have a foundation as part of their institution? What do you think?

Malik Brown: So my thought is that in today’s just business climate, and I’m using the word business broadly, no matter what sector you’re in, nonprofit, higher education, government, I think we find ourselves at a time where there is a need for cross sector collaboration. Right? When you look at sort of the ecosystem and sort of your place or position within that ecosystem, it seems to me that it really necessitates the need to have, again, partners, collaborators from across industry.

So my short answer is probably, “no”. If they want to do this effectively, if they want to do it at scale, and with the kind of impact that they’re looking to make, then I would say that colleges and universities should be partnering with the business community. They should be partnering with philanthropy, and they should be partnering with community-based organizations, like a Graduate Philadelphia, that can really help with their enrollment needs. As you mentioned, there is a national emergency around enrollment and there, the K through 12, , pipeline is drying up, and so we have to look to other markets. And that emerging market is really around that adult learner, and that adult learner market is broad.

You have returning citizens that are a part of adult learner market. You have military veterans that are a part of an adult learner market. You have, again, just a generic, non-traditional learner. You have moms who may have stepped out of the workplace and looking to return to the workplace and go back to school.

So we really have to get really creative, and really thinking about how are we going to make college and university sustainable? And part of that sustainability strategy is really tapping into that adult learner, non-traditional market.

Drumm McNaughton: And from what you said, it just brought something to mind, one size does not fit all. You’ve got multiple different buckets out there for enrollment, and that old saying, ” until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes. You don’t really understand what I’m having to go through”. It really makes sense for folks who are doing enrollment, folks who are building courses to really reach out and understand who their potential student is and could be.

Malik Brown: That’s correct.

[00:32:25] Three Takeaways for University Presidents and Boards Considering Enrolling Non-Traditional Students

Drumm McNaughton: This has been fascinating. I thank you so much for taking the time today. As we always do, two standard questions. Three takeaways for university presidents and boards who are contemplating enrolling some of these non-traditional students.

Malik Brown: Three takeaways. I would say,

1. Really embrace the adult learner market. Understand the students that you’re serving. Adult learners are, in many cases, coming from diverse communities of color, they have different needs, but the need that’s consistent no matter what your background is a desire to have greater social and economic mobility for themselves and their families. That is consistent thread that we see no matter what your racial, or socioeconomic background is.
   
   
2. The other piece that I would say is, really focus on the integration of post-secondary credentials and workforce certifications. We are living in a time, in an economic context, where employers are looking for skilled laborers. We are working in a time where families and households are seeking living wage employment, and the convergence of that, we really have to focus on short-term interventions, and then once that family is stabilized, once that business has some of its frontline workforce needs met, we can then talk about the bridge to that two or four year degree program for those mid-skill occupations. So that’s two.
   
   
3. And then third, I would say, really focus on collaboration and strategic partnerships. Right? We can’t all do it by ourselves. We all are part of this ecosystem of education and workforce development. We all have different core competencies and strengths. And I would say really focus on what are you good at? And one of my famous books is Jim Collins, “What Are You The Best in the World at?”, And then bring in some other actors and other partners that can help you achieve your goals.

Drumm McNaughton: Those are great takeaways. Thank you so much for those. What’s next for you? What’s next for Graduate Philadelphia?

[00:34:30] Future Plans and Strategic Goals

Malik Brown: So we are embarking on a pretty ambitious strategic plan. So I have been at the helm of Graduate Philadelphia for almost five years. So this October will be five years. So really excited about, thank you so much, really excited about the next five years and the first few years, it was really building infrastructure, hiring the right staff, getting our go-to market value proposition in place, getting a few wins in terms of, philanthropic gifts.

So we’ve learned to crawl, and now we’re walking, and now the next layer of the journey is really sprinting, and really scaling, the work that we’re doing. And so we started out with really no money in the bank. When we started, we started with a very, very small amount of money, about $185,000 of Seed Capital. And in the last few years, we have grossed about 1.8, $1.9 million in revenue. So we have grown exponentially, and from a revenue standpoint, but we really want to get to that $10 million mark. And in order for us to get to $10 million in revenue, we have to add things like federal funding, we have to have more of a stronger individual donor base, we have to go after major gifts, we have to continue to build out our fee for service model that we do with some corporations. So there’s a lot of work that we need to do over the next five years to get to that $10 million revenue mark, but I believe it’s achievable.

And I believe if we do it and if we get those additional investments, we are going to be able to serve a lot more households, a lot more families, and we’re going to be able to be a really positive force here in the city of Philadelphia.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, that sounds amazing and I look forward to hearing more about it as you get down that path.

[00:36:15] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Drumm McNaughton: Malik, thank you so much for being on the show. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I look forward to the next time our paths get across.

Malik Brown: Thank you.

Drumm McNaughton: Thanks for listening and a special thank you to my guest today, Malik Brown, CEO of Graduate Philadelphia. Malik, thank you so much, not only for being on the podcast, but for all the great work you’re doing for the city of Philadelphia and its multiple learners there who could really value and use a job.

To my listeners, thank you so much for listening. I’ll see you next week.