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Alex, Founder & CEO, has more than 15 years of executive management and strategic development experience in both the nonprofit and private sectors. Before creating Beyond 12, she served as an Associate Partner at NewSchools Venture Fund, where she oversaw the firm's work to build community and share knowledge among its entrepreneurs, and also guided the organization's efforts to ensure that its portfolio organizations prepare students to not only attend college, but to persist and graduate. In 2009, Alex became an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at NewSchools, where she developed the business plan for Beyond 12.

Alex's previous professional experience includes serving as executive director of The Princeton Review's Silicon Valley office, co-founder and vice president of marketing and online strategy at educational travel startup Explorica, director of operations at EF Education, and operations manager at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, where she coordinated the efforts of an international youth substance abuse prevention foundation. Alex was also the executive director of Foundation for a College Education (FCE), a nonprofit in East Palo Alto, California, whose mission is to increase the number of students of color who enroll in and graduate from college. She recently completed a 3-year term as president of the FCE board of directors, currently serves on the FCE advisory board and is a volunteer mentor for a group of FCE college students. Alex received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and earned a master's degree with a concentration in policy and organizational leadership from the Stanford University School of Education.

Problem

Many first generation, underrepresented, and low-income students do not have the support to succeed in higher education.

Innovation / New Solution

Beyond 12 addresses the college completion challenge at its root by operating at the intersection of K-12 and higher education, and acting as a data and service bridge between the two systems. The Beyond 12 tracking platform allows high schools and colleges to track and analyze longitudinal student data to help them improve the efficacy of their instructional models, college readiness programs, and support services. The Beyond 12 Facebook application allows students to meet, interact with, and share their experiences with other college-bound and current college students. The Beyond 12college coaching service provides students with the academic and social support they need to earn a college degree, beginning in their senior year of high school and continuing through their second year of college. By integrating a personalized college coaching and networking service for students with an innovative, longitudinal student tracking platform for high schools and colleges, Beyond 12 offers a comprehensive, data-driven college retention solution to help students succeed in college and beyond.

Impact

Given the considerable benefits associated with higher education attainment, Beyond 12 believes that the social and economic challenges facing our country can best be addressed by significantly increasing the number of young adults who hold a postsecondary degree. Toward this end, Beyond 12 focuses on closing the college graduation gap between students who have traditionally attended college and those who have not, and hopes to annually produce a cadre of educated, engaged and economically productive leaders who will not only improve their own lives but those of their families and communities. In addition to this direct impact on students, Beyond 12 seeks to have a catalytic impact on the education system by creating an efficient model for how high schools and colleges can work in more complementary and concrete ways to increase college graduation rates. Beyond 12 is currently working with 20 high schools and tracking and supporting 1800 college freshmen. The organization plans to track and support over 30,000 college students by 2014.

Beyond 12’s culture is one in which data and results continuously drive program and organizational improvement. Beyond 12 monitors all student outcomes using its alumni tracking tool, and will track its growth and sustainability outcomes using its internal information management system. In addition, Beyond 12 will hire an external evaluation firm to conduct a longitudinal study to measure the long-term impact of its integrated college retention approach.

Expert Comments

• There are many college access organizations in the Bay Area that support students through the college application process. Not to diminish this important work in any way, but relatively few nonprofits are focusing their energy on the challenge of college persistence. Beyond12 is an innovative nonprofit that is developing a model to support first generation college students in their drive not just for college acceptance, but for college success.
  
  
• This organization focuses on improving the retention and graduation rates for college students using technology and mentoring.
  
  
• This organization, in pilot phase, is focusing on a huge problem for high schools - how to track its alumni to understand whether they are prepared for college and how to improve the related instruction they are offering for future students. The organization also aims to support students and help them stay in college.
  
  
• Beyond12 is a start-up nonprofit that has tremendous potential to help first-generation college bound students make it through college successfully and graduate. While many organizations focus on getting students to college, there is such a need for organizations like Beyond12 that are supporting our youth through to graduation.
  
  
• This new nonprofit features an innovative technology platform and a student coaching service to help low-income students bridge the transition to college and, ultimately, graduate from college. It also has strong leadership with Alexandra Bernadotte and strong seed funding from NewSchools Venture Fund and others.
  
  
• Alex Bernadotte, the CEO, is passionate and smart. She has developed a solid business model and will provide much needed support to first generation college graduates WHILE they are in their first years of college. Beyond12 will also help high schools track their graduates and learn about how to make their program better.
  
  

From the Nonprofit

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