Braven is an inspiring organization: a nonprofit that partners with higher education institutions to guide their graduates into the workforce. While the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) focuses on higher ed, we also care about what happens after students earn their degree. We invited Braven’s Founder and CEO Aimée Eubanks Davis to the Weekly Wisdom series, where she discussed improving the college-to-career pipeline, partnering with institutions, how Braven approaches higher ed leaders, the realities of scaling innovation, and advice that has made a difference in her own career.
What Comes After College Graduation?
Ms. Eubanks Davis explained how the idea for Braven germinated during her years with Teach For America. A self-identified “talent nerd,” she saw the hurdles impeding far too many aspiring teachers:
“How did you get more young people who shared the racial and income backgrounds of Teach For America students into the organization as teachers and leaders? I was obsessed with making sure that the staff pipeline represented the students we had the privilege of teaching. I knew that Teach For America was looking for early-stage talent, just like investment banks, consulting firms, and government or nonprofit organizations. And if our former students were having a hard time coming over our selection bar, they were having a hard time coming out strong into the world of work.”
Her blueprint for Braven emerged from a paper she wrote as an Aspen Institute Fellow, seeking to identify and channel the talent that was missing the college-to-career pipeline:
“These graduates, coming from underrepresented minority backgrounds, are often first in their families to go to college and don't have the skills or networks to connect into the professional workforce. It was a solvable problem. If a young person had come through some rocky moments to reach the doors of higher ed, getting a high-quality job or going to graduate school should not be the hardest thing. And so, what started out as a research paper became my nonprofit. That's how Braven emerged.”
Helping Higher Ed Institutions Help Students
Ms. Eubanks Davis learned about the American Dream from entrepreneurial parents who worked hard to send her to college. After graduating, she had to find her own way:
“They were not in the professional workforce and could not guide us through coming out on the back end of college and what we might do next. The students who I taught in New Orleans were going on to colleges that are the biggest producers of young people going after the American promise. Yet many of those schools have limited resources. So, one of my early ideas was that any kind of talent pipeline should be in partnership with colleges and universities.
“We got lucky when we were running a 17-person bootcamp at San Jose State. Some deans and faculty members caught wind of us because students started saying, ‘The work I'm doing with this organization is important to me seeing how I get through SJSU, but also how I pay off my debt or help my family when I get out.’ A senior engineering faculty member and some associate business and science deans said, ‘We want to have a conversation with you. What are you doing? Why have you never talked to the university? We think you're onto something.’ So, the Braven model became a course inside of higher education.
“This entrepreneurial collaboration grew from Dr. Elaine Collins’ course Success for Transfer Students. She said, ‘Let's partner together and run this course.’ And I said, ‘Can we please change the name? If we're going to get students excited about it, the name should look and sound a little different.’ We titled the course Life Is a Startup, trying give students the sense that that they were starting up their lives, that this wasn't the end point. Braven has now worked with over 10,000 students, and the model turned into a whole three-year experience because we work directly and in partnership with institutions.”
How Leaders Find Braven
While anyone on any campus can reach out to Braven, Ms. Eubanks Davis notes that her organization’s most likely connection point is the career services department:
“Career services are often so under-resourced. The Braven model is built off the University of Chicago's Career Advancement model. And UChicago, according to their 2023 annual report, was a $10.3 billion endowed institution with 40 full-time people on the career services team. That doesn't include the hundred professors and other people on campus who advise students one-to-one. There isn’t one other school we work with that is so well-staffed, whether it's San Jose State with 26,000 students, Rutgers Newark with 10,000 students, or Spelman College with 3,500 students. But now we hear from provosts, presidents, and chancellors saying, ‘This is a really smart model that has a lot of leverage, especially for schools that don't have the kind of endowment of UChicago.’"
Scaling Innovation in Higher Ed
At the UIA, we’ve noticed that the biggest advocates for scaling any innovation work in the for-profit space with access to more resources. For nonprofits, the fear of running out of money can limit the innovation that ultimately happens. Ms. Eubanks Davis shared how Braven’s model addresses this reality:
“In nonprofits, we get a lot of push to scale, and I'm like, ‘Do you know what you're scaling to and why? Do you have actual metrics and outcomes?’ I think without that pressure, we’d see far more nonprofits doing even better and making even more impact over time, solving some really intractable problems. In higher education, context matters. Sometimes when people ask you to go fast, they're overlooking the importance of understanding the context of where we want to partner. When we started partnering with Delaware State and Kia Williams came on as our executive director, she deeply knew Delaware. We are starting an innovation in Arkansas, and Melvin Clayton, who's come on there, went to University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff. He grew up in Pine Bluff. This is a different context. We need to bring in someone who has the context also. That almost always means that you're going to go slow to go fast in order to make sure that you truly have deep respect and partnership with faculty, staff, deans, provosts, presidents, and chancellors.”
Leadership Wisdom
We always end each Weekly Wisdom conversation with some questions that help us better understand our guests. Here’s what Ms. Eubanks Davis said about her personal models for leadership:
“I've seen some incredible leaders like Wendy Kopp at Teach For America. I've been coached by her husband, Richard Barth, who helped grow and lead the KIPP Foundation. On the Braven team, LaNiesha Cobb Sanders, who oversees our product work, is very different from me. We grew up together in Teach For America, and her strengths are far greater than mine in how we're delivering product. And Ed Herrera, our CTO and operations officer, came from the world of retail, so different than what I have come from. But what I've learned from everyone is how important it is for any organization to have core values and then be disciplined about their goals.”
As for the best advice she ever received and the advice she most often gives others:
“I keep coming back to my conversation with a woman who had gone to my alma mater. She took me to lunch and said, ‘What I've seen at this point in my life is that my friends that have taken the path less traveled are actually happier and more gratified in their careers.’ She told me to allow myself time and space to work hard on problems that I cared about, and the money will come.
“What I repeat to others, but usually repeat to myself first, is by my first manager Dr. Tony Recasner, the very untraditional principal of my school. He was a psychologist who happened to start the first charter school in Louisiana. I had a parent complain to him about me being a novice teacher who needed more training and support. At my performance review, he was like, ‘What do you think of this?’ And I was like, ‘I think she's right,’ but then listed the 500 other reasons why I thought she was maybe not right. And he said, ‘I want you to listen, listen again, listen one more time, and then respond.’ His point was that even if you don't agree with everything, there's probably portions that are right, but you're refuting it because you can't even get it into your head that you're not right. I now try to really listen if I’m going to be in deep partnership with people. I do not know the most.”
When we concluded by asking Ms. Eubanks Davis for her ideal professional development book, she recommended:
“I often go back to the book that really inspires me, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I taught it so many times as a teacher, and the biggest lesson in that book is about putting yourself in someone else's shoes and walking in those shoes before you pass judgment. I needed that advice to make myself a stronger teacher and leader.”
Bios of Guest and Co-Hosts
Aimée Eubanks Davis was inspired to start Braven by her deep passion and belief that our next generation of leaders can emerge from everywhere. Growing up in low-income and underrepresented communities and working with young people from similar backgrounds drives her mission to discover, develop, and connect extraordinary, diverse, and driven young people to high-quality opportunities and networks. Ms. Eubanks Davis spent the majority of her career at Teach For America, starting as a 1995 TFA corps member while teaching sixth-grade social studies and language arts in New Orleans. In 2002, she joined the TFA staff as Vice President of New Site Development, growing the organization’s presence in Miami and Philadelphia, and doubling its presence in New York City. In 2005, she became the Chief People Officer, overseeing staff growth from 200 to over 2500 staff members. Additionally, she developed a comprehensive competency model for recruitment, selection, performance management, and learning and development, positioning the Human Assets team to fuel TFA’s growth and success. In 2011, she assumed the role of Executive Vice President of People, Community, and Diversity, leading TFA’s work to uphold its commitment to diversity and build an organizational model of fairness and equality. In January 2013, she began overseeing the Public Affairs and Communications teams. Before joining TFA, Ms. Eubanks Davis was a program officer at The Breakthrough Collaborative after leading the Summerbridge New Orleans site to become one of Breakthrough’s most successful sites. A graduate of Mt. Holyoke College, Ms. Eubanks Davis is a Pahara-Aspen Fellow, 2023 McNulty Prize Winner, member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, Braddock Scholar, Draper Richards Foundation Entrepreneur, and Camelback Ventures Fellow. She resides in Chicago with her husband and three children.
Co-Host: Bridget Burns, Executive Director, University Innovation Alliance
Dr. Bridget Burns is the founding Executive Director of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA). For the past decade, she has advised university presidents, system chancellors, and state and federal policy leaders on strategies to expand access to higher education, address costs, and promote completion for students of all backgrounds. The UIA was developed during Bridget’s tenure as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellowship at Arizona State University. She held multiple roles within the Oregon University System, including serving as Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor, where she won the national award for innovation in higher education government relations. She was a National Associate for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and has served on several statewide governing boards including ones governing higher education institutions, financial aid policy, and policy areas impacting children and families.
About Weekly Wisdom
Weekly Wisdom is an event series that happens live on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also becomes a podcast episode. Every week, we join forces with Inside Higher Ed and talk with a sitting college president or chancellor about how they're specifically navigating the challenges of this moment. These conversations will be filled with practicable things you can do right now by unpacking how and why college leaders are making decisions within higher education. Hopefully, these episodes will also leave you with a sense of optimism and a bit of inspiration.
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