By now, we all are familiar with the big startling facts related to unemployment and even underemployment (working jobs that are not full-time and don’t require a degree) but, are we also well versed in the staggering amount of college educated students that are unprepared and underequipped to compete for careers upon graduation. Add to that the national student loan debt that has now topped $1 Trillion dollars, yes Trillion with a “T” for those not as current and you have a substantial career development and education flaw. The sub-story brewing is less well known and it’s the digestible story that you can actually impact, we call it breaking a big issue into small digestible spoon size bites.

Why the sub-story matters: The sub-story is that the average college student, you know, the broke college student with big ambitions and less than $150 in their bank account, meanwhile they can anticipate paying for their schooling via loans at the collective tune of $292 billion in student loan debt for just the under 30 age group (second only to the 30-39 age group at $307 billion in student loan debt). The unemployment rate for new college graduates is at 8%, meanwhile the underemployment rate is at 18.3% and neither of these take into account the much higher and overwhelming number of college students working full time jobs that have nothing to do with their college major, passions or interest. This sub-story is real and the lack of preparation and access for students of financial need makes the aforementioned issue that much more horrific given their lack of ability to compete in the corporate setting.

How we’re solving it: We believe that if you supplement the college education process with career aligning opportunities that expose students to companies, influencers, networks and industry nuances via internship arrival support, trade show attendance and conference participation, you heighten a student’s chances of landing full time jobs in their industry of choice and within their major. This also stimulates the student to take further ownership of their college completion upon experiencing these aforementioned opportunities, therefore reducing the time that they take to complete the college process.

By donating today, you play a significant role in addressing one of the three cost prohibitive areas (event attendance fees, airline cost or hotel/lodging cost) that emerging professionals encounter in aspiring to attend these career-catapulting conferences. With the average industry conference being upwards of $400, round trip domestic airfare prices steady rising and 2-night hotel cost being upwards of $300.00, most college students simply cannot afford to participate in some of the most career enhancing opportunities that can ignite their respective career paths.

Imagine a leveled playing field where the best and brightest students of all socio-economic backgrounds can compete in the corporate workplace to work with brands and organizations that are changing the world. With your support, Silver Spoon Foundation by way of our “Successful Transitions” campaign enables the aforementioned by first, providing students the chance to build their professional network while still in school, long before they have made unnecessary errors in their path to success. Next, we allow student scholarship recipients to gain the competitive edge on their peers by being directly influenced by the industry shapers that speak at the conferences. These speakers share best practices, state their views on the future direction of their respective industries and also speak to the resources that lend to great work. Lastly, we create opportunities for student to capture internships and entry-level positions that can only come from being at the right place at the right time.

Our goals for the “Successful Transitions” campaign are set quarterly to raise enough (see above goal) donations to accommodate supporting 100 scholarship recipients annually with an opportunity to gain a competitive edge in their career pursuits in spite their background being of financial need.