Potential is
not the problem.
Preparation is.
Bold Futures Academy helps young people figure out what they are actually good at, then gets them ready for the path they choose. College, a trade, a job, or a business of their own.
in March 2025
Every Number Documented
Didn't Prepare Them to Think Entrepreneurially
· UConn, 2025
in High School
A generation full of potential,
pointed at a future nobody prepared them for.
The young people entering the workforce are talented, ambitious, and unready, and it is not their fault. The ones headed for careers were never taught how work actually works. The ones who want to build were never shown how. And too many choose a direction without ever learning what they are good at, or which problems need exactly them.
employers say colleges are not preparing graduates for the workforce
Intelligent.com employer survey, 2024
teens would rather build something of their own than take a traditional job, yet most graduate without a single course that shows them how
Junior Achievement teen entrepreneurship survey
of graduates say they would change something about their education, most often what they studied
Cengage Graduate Employability Report
Read together, these numbers describe one failure, not three. Young people are being prepared for a future that does not match them: employers say the preparation is missing, students want a different path than the one being offered, and far too many only discover the mismatch after the decision is already made. The common thread is people are being matched to paths that don't fit who they are or where the economy is headed.
The bill for guessing
comes due years later.
A decision made without good information does not feel like a crisis at seventeen. The numbers show exactly where it shows up later.
and the wrong major
of graduates say they would choose a different field of study if they could go back. The field gets picked before the person is known, and the tuition is spent either way.
Federal Reserve, Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, 2023
that goes wrong fast
companies fired a recent college graduate they had hired that same year. Nobody covered how workplaces actually run before these graduates arrived, and they paid for it first.
Intelligent.com survey of 966 business leaders, 2024
that never gets built
High schoolers hear a lot about applying to college five times more often than about starting a business. The students who want to build are rarely shown the next step, so the idea stays an idea.
Gallup and Walton Family Foundation, Voices of Gen Z, 2024
who blames themselves
of Gen Z students do not agree they feel prepared for the future. This is the cost that lasts, because a bad fit gets read as personal failure, and a capable person quietly decides they are not the kind who succeeds.
Gallup and Walton Family Foundation, Voices of Gen Z, 2025
The bill keeps running after graduation, too. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York counts 42% of recent college graduates as underemployed, working jobs that do not require the degree they just paid for. None of this is a talent problem. It is a preparation problem, and preparation is something somebody has to actually provide.
One mission. Many paths forward.
The future is not one-size-fits-all. Preparation should not be either. Bold Futures Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that walks with a young person through four steps, in order, and the path they end up choosing is theirs. Over sixty young people so far.
Every student starts with the Bold Futures Navigator, a short assessment that puts language to what they are good at, how they work with other people, and what actually drives them. Most have never been asked.
College, a trade, a job, the military, a business of their own. We do not push one over another. We help a student weigh the options against what they just learned about themselves.
Then the work gets specific to the path. Building a venture in LaunchLab, getting ready for the workforce through Ignite, or a Readiness Workshop on the thing they are about to face.
Nobody does the transition alone. Students meet mentors, guest speakers, and Demo Day judges through the program, and the relationships tend to outlast it. Several of our students have come back to work with us.
The three program lines below are how steps three and four get delivered. They are not three separate offers. They are the same path, taken by students in different places.
Where the work
actually happens.
Workshops, program mentoring, and individualized one-on-one coaching
Values-aligned mentorship students describe as natural and genuine
Built on mentorship work with UConn's Werth Institute that started in 2023, before the organization did
Conflict, rejection, negotiation, interviews, career counseling, personal branding, and financial literacy
All age groups · virtual or onsite · submit an interest form to set one up, or co-design your own
First workshop with Hartford Youth Scholars · Central Connecticut State University · July 2026
Virtual delivery · open nationwide · 10 seats per cohort
Historical analysis · live simulations · entrepreneur speakers · forecasting
Human-centered design · ethical decision-making · real business planning
Every student works on their own individual venture from Week 1
We don't teach a subject.
We teach students how to think.
We help young people understand their strengths and find the right path forward, whether that is college, the workforce, or building something of their own. We pair analytical tools, ethical frameworks, and real mentorship with a simple belief: when a student knows what makes them different, they can choose a direction that fits. It is the through line across everything we run.
Students study how past economic and social shifts unfolded, so they recognize the pattern the next time it begins.
Nothing stays theoretical. Role-based simulations, blind case studies, live pitches, and hands-on workshops, with real feedback every time.
Founders, professionals, and leaders show up across every program: failures, pivots, and all.
From market research to long-range forecasting, students learn to read real data and let it shape the call they make.
Understanding people deeply before you build for them, lead them, or serve them.
Holding your values inside systems that may not share them, and making the responsible call when it costs something.
Programs that change trajectories.
Verbatim. Unedited. The words of students from BFA's Ignite and LaunchLab programs.
The need is measurable.
So is the response.
Our own surveys confirm the problem is real, and our results show the response works. One column is why we exist. The other is what happens when students get what they were missing.
of students we surveyed said school never taught them to think like an entrepreneur
scholars at our Hartford workshop, from some of Connecticut's most competitive schools, arrived unable to put their own value into words
average confidence describing themselves, out of 5, after one hour of our personal branding method
real ventures built, named, positioned, and pitched at Demo Day by our inaugural cohort
every Demo Day mentor scored the top founders a perfect five on delivery
"From a lack-of-scope, data-less, un-researched idea to a professional-grade deck and pitch presentable to board members."
Volunteer Mentor · Demo Day Observation
The students are one side
of this. You are the other.
A young person cannot get ready for the workforce in a room with no one from the workforce in it. The organizations that partner with us are not doing charity. They are solving a problem they already have.
Three in four employers say graduates arrive underprepared, and hiring for experience that nobody gave young people the chance to get is a loop that does not break on its own. A sponsored cohort puts a real problem from your business in front of students, with mentors from your team beside them. We are also building this out for internship programs that want to give their interns more than a desk.
See how corporate partnership works →Students leave when they cannot connect what they are studying to a life they can picture, and career services usually meets them long after that doubt sets in. We work alongside campus and school programs on readiness, mentorship, and the transition out. Our longest partnership, with UConn's Werth Institute, began before Bold Futures Academy existed and is still running.
See how school partnership works →Every gift helps a
young person find their path.
501(c)(3) · EIN: 33-3751028 · All contributions tax-deductible · Monthly giving available
Prefer monthly? Every tier can be given as a monthly gift on our GiveButter page, steady support that keeps programs running all year.
There's a place for you
in this mission.
Whether you are a student, a school, a mentor, a corporate partner, or a donor, there is a seat at this table. Find the one that fits you.
The Roundtable
Series.
Ten seats, ninety minutes, and one honest question about how young people get ready for what comes next. Employers, educators, parents, and young people answer it at the same table, and students are in the conversation rather than in the audience.
The purpose is simple. Most conversations about young people happen without them, and most people working on this problem never end up in the same room. We put employers, educators, parents, and young people at one table, and the relationships that come out of it are what actually move things.
Bring the people closest to a problem into one room, name what has gone unaddressed, and move on it together.
One mission.
Many paths forward.
The future is not one-size-fits-all, so the preparation is not either. Three connected program lines, all mentorship-driven, all pointed at one promise: a young person who knows what they are good at and is ready for what they choose next.
LaunchLab
Six weeks. One idea. One real plan.
Ten seats per cohort, and every student builds their own venture, not a team project and not a hypothetical. From Week 1, it is your actual idea. You finish with a business plan, a tested prototype, a pitch deck, and a Demo Day pitch in front of real mentors. The Fall 2026 cohort runs September 12 to October 17, and applications are open now.
What makes this program
genuinely different.
Most high school entrepreneurship programs cover the basics. LaunchLab goes deeper, equipping students with the analytical, ethical, and forecasting skills to navigate an economy still being built.
Students study history’s major economic shifts, the Industrial Revolution through the AI era, and learn who adapted, who didn’t, and why.
Students inhabit real leadership roles each week (CEO, CMO, CTO, Ethics Advisor), then compare their thinking against how real founders solved the same problem.
Working entrepreneurs share their stories live, failures and pivots included, and students ask questions directly.
Students read real economic data to forecast where industries and opportunities are heading over the next decade.
Students learn to deeply understand the people a product will affect before designing anything for them.
Every major decision is examined through an ethical lens, AI ethics included, so ventures are responsible, not just viable.
Entrepreneurship in the Age of AI:
The Human Advantage
Every LaunchLab cohort teaches the same entrepreneurship fundamentals. What changes each time is the lens. We chose this one because these students are not entering the economy their parents worked in. Much of what people once did by hand is being automated, and the question worth their attention is what remains distinctly ours to do.
They work it out three ways. They look backward at previous technological upheavals for what held true each time. They study founders working through this shift right now, both in case studies and live in the room as guest speakers. And they look forward at where things are heading, then let that shape the ventures they design rather than building for a world that is already passing.
The inaugural cohort,
honestly reported.
Six students enrolled, four built ventures, and three pitched at Demo Day. We report those numbers exactly as they are.
“Before LaunchLab, I thought entrepreneurship was strictly building a business. Now I think entrepreneurship is building an idea with purpose to help other people.”
Anonymous Founder, Spring 2026
Workshops · Guest Speaking · 1:1 Coaching
Includes UConn Werth Institute · 3 years running
100% said high school left them unprepared to think like an entrepreneur. 86% would have joined LaunchLab.
4.1 out of 5 confidence in bringing their idea forward. Five of seven opted into ongoing mentorship.
Ignite Program
Mentorship-driven support for college students through workshops, guest speaking, and one-on-one coaching. Our partnership with UConn's Werth Institute began in 2023 and has run continuously since, predating the organization itself, and in post-workshop surveys students most often describe the sessions as fun and informative.
"Working with Ruth honestly felt so natural. I loved how our values aligned and how easy it was to brainstorm with her."
Ignite Program Alum
The Readiness
Workshop Series.
Single-session and short-series workshops that teach the skills every path requires and no class covers, open to all age groups and delivered virtually or onsite with partner schools, community programs, and organizations. Topics include navigating conflict at work and school, handling rejection, negotiation, interview preparation, career counseling, Personal Branding 101, and financial literacy, and we co-design workshops around a partner's specific needs. Submit an interest form and we will help you set one up.
Personal Branding 101, strengths and story, and career counseling. Participants learn to name what makes them different and where it points.
Interview preparation, negotiation, self-advocacy, and navigating conflict at work and school.
Navigating rejection, feedback and resilience, and financial literacy, from a first paycheck forward.
In a single sixty-minute personal branding session at Central Connecticut State University, scholars from eight Connecticut schools mapped their experiences, wrote accomplishment statements, and pitched themselves out loud with live feedback.
confidence describing themselves, out of 5
would recommend it to a friend
from arrival to pitching themselves out loud
"My experiences can be small, they don't have to be big."
12TH GRADER · HARTFORD YOUTH SCHOLARS WORKSHOP
Ready to get involved
in a BFA program?
Students, schools, mentors, and partners are all welcome. Find your place in our mission.
The people behind
Bold Futures.
Powered by a passionate team of leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, and community volunteers committed to helping young people discover their strengths and find the right path forward.
Board of Directors
BFA's Board brings expertise across education, finance, community engagement, marketing, and entrepreneurship, with 4 standing committees overseeing governance, program quality, finance, and marketing & outreach.
Four standing committees.
Overall governance, leadership direction & organizational strategy
Fundraising, grants, donor engagement & financial sustainability
Brand, partnerships & recruitment
Curriculum quality, student experience & program evaluation
The People Behind the Work
BFA is powered by a dedicated team of staff and volunteers: grant writers, co-facilitators, program managers, talent recruiters, and communications designers who make the work possible every day.
The Summer 2026 interns.
Eight interns carry real organizational deliverables from June through August, across operations, communications, partnerships, and program development.
Want to join the BFA team?
We welcome mentors, guest speakers, facilitators, grant writers, and volunteers. Reach out, there's a role for you here.
Support young people
finding their path.
Your donation directly supports BFA's mission to equip young innovators with the tools, mentorship, and resources they need to turn ideas into impact.
Where your donation goes.
BFA runs lean by design: virtual delivery, a volunteer mentor model, and a working board keep overhead small. The large majority of every gift goes directly to programming, with a small share covering the operations that keep cohorts running.
Curriculum & Materials
Workbooks, case studies, simulation materials, and digital tools that make BFA's distinctive curriculum come alive for every student.
Mentorship
One-on-one and cohort mentoring by Ruth Gay and guest mentors, the most impactful component of our model.
Guest Speakers & Mentors
Honorariums for the professionals and mentors who speak live to students, making real-world connection possible for every cohort.
Outreach & Access
Marketing, school partnerships, and recruitment efforts that ensure every willing student, regardless of background, can find BFA.
Bookkeeping, platforms, and the evaluation infrastructure that turns each cohort into evidence for the next. Books are reconciled monthly, and financial statements are available to funders on request.
More than sixty young people reached, every number documented. Read the complete record of what BFA has built, who we have served, and what the students made.
Make your impact last all year.
Monthly giving creates the predictable funding BFA needs to plan for future cohorts, hire facilitators, and reach more students. Starting at just $10/month, you can sustain the mission year-round, and cancel anytime.
- ✓ Cancel anytime, no commitment lock-in
- ✓ 501(c)(3) tax-deductible, annual receipt provided
- ✓ Monthly donors are recognized in our annual report
Find your level of impact.
501(c)(3) · EIN: 33-3751028 · All contributions tax-deductible · Monthly giving available · $250+ donors receive receipt
Tax Information
Bold Futures Academy is a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Organization (EIN: 33-3751028). All contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. Donors giving $250 or more will automatically receive a receipt for tax purposes.
Your Privacy Matters
We never sell or share donor information. Your privacy is our priority. Donor information is used solely for acknowledgment and reporting purposes.
Send a Check
Bold Futures Academy Foundation
153 Turner Road
Rockland, MA 02370
Checks payable to Bold Futures Academy Foundation.
Every gift helps a young person find their path.
Join us in shaping the next generation of leaders and changemakers.
Donate Now →Contact
Bold Futures.
Have questions about our programs? Interested in partnering? Want to mentor the next generation? We'd love to hear from you.
admin@boldfuturesacademy.org
boldfuturesacademy.org
Bold Futures Academy Foundation
153 Turner Road · Rockland, MA 02370
EIN: 33-3751028
Find your place in our mission.
Students
Apply to LaunchLab or Ignite, or start with the Bold Futures Navigator. Applications are open now.
Schools
Partner through our School Host, Referral, or Corporate Sponsor model. BFA handles the rest.
Mentors
Mentor a cohort, guest speak in a session, or commit to one-on-one ignite program mentorship.
Partners & Donors
Sponsor a cohort, provide mentors, or fund operations. All contributions are tax-deductible.
One observation.
Then the data agreed.
This work began with our founder mentoring students at her alma mater. Over two years the same pattern kept surfacing. These were capable, motivated young people who had never been given a way to weigh which path actually fit what they knew about themselves. They had ambition. What was missing was a method for turning self-knowledge into direction.
That was one person's observation, so she went looking for whether the data agreed. It did, and more sharply than expected. Three in four employers say colleges are not preparing graduates for the workforce. Three in five young people would rather build something of their own than take a traditional job, yet most graduate without a single course that shows them how. And 94% of graduates say they would change something about their education, most often what they studied.
So we built our answer around how people actually learn. Students build something real instead of sitting through lectures about it, mentorship is structured into every program because wisdom passes between people rather than through slides, and alongside the technical work we teach what carries into any room: knowing your value, handling a hard conversation, recovering from rejection. We start early and stay open to every path, because the preparation should reach a young person before the decision, not after it.
The world young people are entering
is changing fast.
Technology is evolving, career paths are shifting, and the skills that make someone valuable at work are not the ones school was built to teach. Yet most students still move through school with almost no chance to practice those skills on anything real.
The economy they are walking into rewards judgment, initiative, and the ability to work with people. Those are learned by doing, and doing is exactly what school has the least room for.
That is the gap we close, with hands-on learning, mentorship, and real personal development.
The Gap We Close
Most students move through school without the chance to practice real leadership, ethical decision-making, or entrepreneurial thinking. BFA closes that gap, before it calcifies.
Mentorship Matters
Confidence is built through experience and relationship. Every BFA student is connected with mentors who have actually built things, and who take their ideas seriously.
Skills That Keep Their Value
We equip students to navigate the economy they are entering, not the one that existed ten years ago. That means forecasting, data literacy, AI ethics, and applied judgment.
Young people are not empty vessels
waiting to be filled.
They arrive with real gifts and instincts already in them. Those things are simply rarely named, rarely nurtured, and almost never connected to a path. Our work is to draw them out and give them somewhere to go.
The Right Environment
Challenged, supported, and taken seriously, all at once.
Meaningful Challenge
Real problems worth solving, hard, never hypothetical.
Real Mentorship
Mentors who don't just teach; they invest and walk alongside.
Earned Confidence
Built week by week through practice, feedback, and experience.
Three areas of work.
One through-line.
Entrepreneurship education. Workforce preparation. The Readiness Workshop Series. All of it delivered the same way: through mentorship, experiential learning, and critical thinking, so students practice what they learn on real problems, with real people beside them.
Students who are curious,
creative, and ready to grow.
BFA's programming is especially valuable for young people who:
Have ideas but don't know where to start
Want to build confidence in leadership and communication
Are curious about entrepreneurship, their future career, or solving real problems
Want mentorship from people with real-world experience
Are looking for a space where they can be both challenged and supported
Students do not need to have everything figured out to begin. They simply need a place to start building.
A generation that leads
with skill and with character.
Young people whose work fits their talents and whose character holds up under pressure. People who know their worth, can hold a hard conversation, and make a habit of seeking wisdom. A generation that builds with ethics, not just profit.
Our MissionTo prepare young people for their futures, whatever path they choose. College, a trade, a job, or a business of their own. We deliver that preparation through entrepreneurial education, readiness workshops, and workforce mentorship, with real mentors beside them the whole way.
Background in math, statistics, and economics. Former corporate project manager. Startup founder.
Giving back what
I was given.
"Bold Futures Academy began as an act of faith. I kept watching young people be handed a future changing faster than anything they were taught to meet it with, and I recognized the pattern. Every time technology leaps, the people without the new skills get left behind. I was not willing to watch that happen to a generation I believe in.
This is also me giving something back. I would not have had the confidence to build a corporate career, or to start ventures of my own, without people who spoke into my life at every stage of it, from childhood through my career. They gave me room to try, to get it wrong, and to keep going. That is why mentorship sits inside everything we run. I want students in the habit of seeking wisdom from people who have already walked the road.
What I want for these students is simple. Know what you are worth and say it out loud. See the root of a hard problem instead of the symptom. Speak for yourself and your generation in any room you walk into. Be led by your ethics, not only by what pays. And know that whatever you build, somebody is behind you."
Join the Bold Futures story.
Whether you are a student, parent, educator, mentor, or supporter, there is a place for you in the work we are building.
Apply to
Bold Futures Academy.
Wherever you are right now, there is a place for you here. Start with the Bold Futures Navigator, and we will help you find the path that fits, whether that is entrepreneurship, workforce readiness, or personal growth.
Start with the Bold Futures Navigator
Before you submit an application to LaunchLab or Ignite, please take the Bold Futures Navigator. It is a short assessment that helps you name your strengths and how you work best, and it is part of the application for both programs. It takes about ten minutes, there are no wrong answers, and what you get back is yours to keep whether or not you end up in a cohort. We read your results alongside your application, so it helps us understand you before we ever meet.
Take the Navigator →Before you submit: please take the Bold Futures Navigator. It is part of this application and takes about ten minutes.
Ready to build something real?
LaunchLab is a 6-week virtual entrepreneurship program for students in Grades 10–12. There are no right answers in this application, we are looking for authenticity, curiosity, and effort.
We review applications on a rolling basis through August 8 and follow up by email
Every applicant is invited to a short info session in late July to learn about LaunchLab and ask questions, parents and guardians welcome
Final decisions go out by August 15. If offered a seat, orientation is the first week of September and the program runs six Saturdays, September 12 to October 17
Fall 2026 Cohort · Grades 10–12 · 10 seats available
Having trouble with the form above? Open it in a new tab instead →
Got questions? We've got answers.
Not at all. Neither LaunchLab nor Ignite expects any prior business experience, and both are designed for students at all starting points. We are looking for curiosity, effort, and a genuine interest in learning, not a business background.
Yes. LaunchLab is delivered entirely online, every Saturday. This means students from anywhere in the country can participate, all you need is a computer and a good internet connection.
The program runs 6 weeks, with sessions on Saturdays from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM EST. Students should also expect some light work between sessions as they develop their venture concept.
Bold Futures Academy is a nonprofit. We work to make our programs as accessible as possible. Reach out to us directly if cost is a barrier, we do not want that to prevent any student from participating.
We review applications on a rolling basis through August 8 and follow up by email, with final decisions by August 15. Every applicant is invited to a short info session in late July, and parents and guardians are welcome. If you are offered a seat, orientation is the first week of September and the program runs six Saturdays, September 12 to October 17.
No. Ignite is open to college students anywhere, whatever school they attend. We do partner with specific campuses, including UConn's Werth Institute, but you do not need to be enrolled at a partner school to take part.
LaunchLab is our six-week program for high school students in grades 10 through 12, where each student builds a venture and pitches it at Demo Day. Ignite is for college students and focuses on workforce and entrepreneurial readiness through workshops, guest speakers, and one-on-one mentorship.
Yes. The Readiness Workshop Series runs as single sessions and short series, open to all ages, virtually or onsite. Most workshops come to you through a school, college, or organization, so if you would like one at yours, please put us in touch.
Yes, for both LaunchLab and Ignite. It is a short assessment, about ten minutes, that helps you name your strengths and how you work best. We read it alongside your application, and the results are yours to keep either way.
We are happy to help. Reach out to us at admin@boldfuturesacademy.org and we will get back to you.
Let's build something
for your young people.
Bold Futures Academy partners with schools, colleges, nonprofits, and companies to bring entrepreneurship education and readiness training to the young people they already serve. Every partnership starts the same way, with a conversation about the gap you are trying to close. Nothing here is a fixed package, and we are glad to design around what you actually need.
Several kinds of partnership,
one starting point.
Find the section that sounds like your organization. If none of them quite fit, reach out anyway and we will figure it out together.
Bring a program
into your building.
We work with high schools to put entrepreneurship education and readiness training in front of students who would not otherwise get it. That can be a single class period, a grade level, or the whole school, during the day or after it.
Our six-session entrepreneurship program, delivered to your students. Each one builds their own venture, from first idea to a pitch in front of real mentors.
Single sessions on the skills no class covers: navigating conflict, handling rejection, negotiation, interview preparation, personal branding, and financial literacy. Virtual or onsite.
Tell us the gap you are seeing in your students and we will build the session around it rather than handing you a template.
Send us the students your counseling load cannot reach. Our student programs are virtual, so distance is never the barrier.
Readiness support
for your students.
We partner with career centers, entrepreneurship centers, and student success offices to run workforce and entrepreneurial readiness programming on campus or online. Our work with campus partners, including UConn's Werth Institute, has run continuously since 2023.
Single sessions or a semester series on workforce readiness, self-advocacy, negotiation, interview preparation, personal branding, and working with AI.
We pair your students with working professionals and run the matching, structure, and follow-through so your staff does not have to.
Bring our team or our network into your programming for a session, a panel, or a full event.
If your career center keeps a directory of professionals who support students, we are glad to be in it and to send our own network your way.
Add to what
you already run.
If you already have young people in the room, we can fill a session on your calendar without adding to your staff's plate. Tell us what your program needs and we will scope the session and the terms with you.
Drop a readiness session into your summer or academic-year programming. We bring the curriculum, the facilitators, and the materials.
Your young people join a LaunchLab cohort as a group, with your staff looped in on their progress.
Demo Days, roundtables, and family nights that serve both of our communities at once.
Put your people and your
problems to work.
Corporate partnerships are funded partnerships, and the best ones give more than money. Your business brings a real problem and your team brings mentors, your funding underwrites the seats, and a cohort of young people spends weeks on it. You get something a check alone could never buy.
The Sponsored Cohort
Your company chooses a real problem from your industry. A cohort of students spends the program working on it, with mentors from your staff beside them and your funding underwriting the seats. You get a front-row view of emerging talent and your people get the kind of mentoring work they actually want to do.
- You provide the problem, the mentors, and the funding
- We run the curriculum, the students, and the logistics
- Ends with a Demo Day your leadership is invited to
Workshops for Internship Programs
If you run a summer or year-round internship program, we deliver the readiness training your interns are rarely given: the unwritten rules of a first job in week one, giving and receiving feedback at the midpoint, and personal branding and presentation prep before their final presentations.
Delivered virtually or onsite, priced per cohort rather than per student.
Sponsorship & Skills
- Site sponsor. Underwrite a full cohort or a program site, recognized across the program and its events.
- Mentors from your team. Skills-based volunteering with a clear scope and a real endpoint, rather than an open-ended ask.
- Demo Day judges. Send a few people to review student pitches. It is the fastest way to understand what we do.
Host us in your space.
Whatever kind of organization you are, offering a room is a real partnership on its own. A high school can host a workshop for its students and for families in the neighborhood. A college can host a program we run for students beyond its own campus. A nonprofit or community organization can open its space so young people who would not otherwise reach us can walk in. A company can host a roundtable, a Demo Day, or a session for its own interns.
We bring the curriculum, the facilitators, the materials, and all of the follow-through. What we need from you is the room and, if you have it, help getting the word out locally. If you have a space and are not sure what would fit in it, tell us what you have and we will suggest something.
Offer a space →Host a conversation
worth having.
Our roundtable series gathers employers, educators, parents, and young people around one honest question about how young people get ready for what comes next. For partner organizations it does three things at once: it puts your work in front of people who should know about it, it introduces you to others working the same problem, and it gives you a real forum to raise the issues your field keeps running into. Organizations can take part in three ways.
Shape the question with us
Your people and our format, built around a problem both of our organizations actually touch. You help decide what gets asked and who is in the seats.
Why organizations do it: every organization at the table gets time on the record to describe their work and name one concrete way someone could plug in, and we send that to every attendee afterward.
Offer your space and network
Give us a place to gather and we handle the rest. We bring the facilitation, the students, and all of the follow-through afterward.
Why organizations do it: ten people who touch the same problem from different sides, in a format built for conversation rather than panels. Most of our partnerships started at a table like this.
Underwrite a session
Fund a roundtable and be recognized in the recording and the clips that come out of it, without any pitch inside the room itself.
Why organizations do it: to put the issue their field keeps hitting in front of the people who could actually move it. Employers, schools, families, and young people, naming what has gone unaddressed together.
Bring a workshop
to your people.
Request or co-design a workshop.
Tell us which sessions your people need and how you would like them delivered, virtually or onsite. We run the Readiness Workshop Series for all age groups, and we co-design sessions around an organization's specific needs. Send this over and we will follow up to scope it with you.
Not sure which one
fits your organization?
Tell us what you are trying to do for your young people and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right partner for it.
Privacy
policy.
We work with young people, so we take this seriously. Here is exactly what we collect, why we collect it, and what we do with it. Last updated July 23, 2026.
Who we are
Bold Futures Academy Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 33-3751028, based at 153 Turner Road, Rockland, MA 02370. You can reach us any time at admin@boldfuturesacademy.org.
What we collect
We only collect information you give us directly. Depending on what you do on this site, that may include:
- Program applications: name, email, phone, school, grade level, and your written answers.
- The Bold Futures Navigator: name, email, school or field of work, and your assessment answers and results.
- Mentor, facilitator, speaker, and volunteer forms: name, email, phone, location, professional background, and availability.
- Contact and newsletter forms: name, email, and your message.
- Donations: handled entirely by Givebutter. We never see or store your payment card details.
- Website analytics: aggregate, privacy-friendly traffic data. No cookies, no cross-site tracking, and no individual profiles.
Why we collect it
To review applications and make admissions decisions, to match mentors and volunteers to the right roles, to run our programs and stay in touch with participants, to report aggregate outcomes to funders and partners, and to improve what we offer. That is all.
Students under 18
Most of our students are minors, and we treat their information accordingly. We collect only what we need to run the program. We do not sell it, rent it, or share it with advertisers, ever. We ask for guardian contact information where a program requires it, and we ask for permission before using any student photo, name, or work publicly. A parent or guardian may review, correct, or request deletion of their student's information at any time by emailing us.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your information. We share it only with the service providers that make our programs run, and only to the extent they need it:
- Form and application tools that receive submissions
- Our project management system, where staff review applications
- Email and calendar tools we use to communicate with you
- Givebutter, which processes donations
- Zoom, which hosts our virtual sessions
How long we keep it
Applications and program records are kept for up to three years so we can report outcomes and stay in touch with alumni. Newsletter subscriptions last until you unsubscribe. You can ask us to delete your information sooner, and we will.
Your choices
You can ask to see what we hold about you, correct it, or have it deleted. You can unsubscribe from our emails at any time using the link in any message, or by writing to us. To make any of these requests, email admin@boldfuturesacademy.org and we will respond within thirty days.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle information, we will update this page and the date at the top. If the change is significant, we will tell participants directly.
Help a young person
find their path.
This page is for people who want to give their time. Mentors, co-facilitators, guest speakers, interns, advisors, and anyone who wants a seat at one of our roundtable conversations. You do not need a background in education or entrepreneurship. You need to be willing to be honest with a young person about how things actually work.
Find the role that
fits your season.
Every one of these shapes a student's experience directly, and none of them ask you to do it alone. Each application takes a few minutes, and we follow up to schedule a short conversation.
Mentor a student through a cohort
You are paired with the same student across a full cohort, so the relationship has time to become real. Most of what students need from you is not expertise. It is someone who asks good questions, remembers what they said last week, and tells them the truth when it would be easier not to.
- Fall cohort runs six Saturdays, September 12 to October 17
- A few hours across the program, concentrated in mentor weeks
- Fully virtual, so you can be anywhere
- Show up for the sessions you commit to, and tell us early if something changes
- Give honest feedback kindly, and let students do their own thinking
- Keep all contact inside the program, never one to one and unsupervised
- An onboarding session and a written mentor guide before you start
- The questions to ask each week, so you are never improvising
- A staff member you can reach any time something feels off
Co-facilitate a session
Own and lead one segment of our Saturday sessions, guiding students through hands-on activities rather than lecturing at them. These applications are always open.
- Six Saturdays, 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM ET, plus weekly prep
- You lead one segment, and you are never running the day alone
- We onboard and prep with you beforehand
Share your story
Spend a session with our students, telling them about your career, your work, or the path that brought you here. The unedited version is the useful one, closed businesses and career changes included.
- A single session, scheduled around you
- Founders, operators, creatives, and professionals all welcome
- We will help you shape a talk that lands with students
Intern with us
Our interns carry real organizational work, not busywork. Past interns have rebuilt our operations, run our newsletter, led partnership research, and audited our student-facing tools. You leave with something you can point to.
- Pods in operations, communications, partnerships, and program development
- Remote, project based, with weekly one-on-ones and a real deliverable
- Open to college students and early-career professionals
Advise the organization
If you have built something, funded something, or run programs before, there is a seat for you in how this organization grows. Board service, advisory roles, and short-term strategic help are all on the table.
- Governance, fundraising, education, finance, and legal backgrounds all valued
- Advisory roles can be a few conversations a year
- We will be honest with you about what we need before you commit
Lend a skill
Have design, writing, data, grant writing, or other skills you would like to put toward this work? Tell us what you would love to help with and we will find the right fit. Flexible, project based, and remote, and a good fit for skills-based corporate volunteering.
Volunteer with us →Take a seat at
the table.
Ninety minutes, about ten seats, and one honest question about how young people get ready for what comes next. Employers, educators, parents, and young people sit at the same table, and students are always in the conversation rather than in the audience. Nobody is put on the spot, and nobody is asked to pretend the evening is charity on their part. Every organization present gets time on the record to talk about their own work and how someone could support it, and you do not need to be part of a BFA program to join one.
Here on behalf of
an organization?
Schools, colleges, nonprofits, and companies partner with us differently. That work has its own page.
Tools to help you
find your footing.
Two free tools from Bold Futures Academy. One helps you understand how you lead and where you might be headed. The other helps you practice making your case out loud. Use them on your own, and bring what you find to a mentor or someone who knows you.
Two ways to
get started.
The Bold Futures Navigator
A short, structured assessment that reads your past, present, and future. In about fifteen minutes you get the kind of leader you are, your top strengths, your six entrepreneurial muscles, the direction your interests point, three real roads to explore, a field to study, a venture to build, or a vocation to pursue, and a first draft of your personal brand. It is yours to keep.
Open the Navigator →The LaunchLab Pitch Tool
A live room for practicing a pitch and getting honest, structured feedback. You make your case, reviewers respond, and you sharpen it on the spot. Built for LaunchLab sessions, and open to anyone who wants to get more comfortable telling the story of an idea.
Open the Pitch Tool →These tools are starting points, not verdicts. Whatever you get, it is a conversation starter, and the best version of any result is the one you talk through with someone who knows you.
Get the Bold Futures newsletter
Program news, application deadlines, and student stories, sent a few times a season. No spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime.