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GOLDMAN SACHS' NEXT GENERATION VENTURE FUND GAINS NATIONAL REACHProgram Sets Students On Track To Success
For Immediate Release
Contact: Charles Beckman
Phone: 410-735-6009
Email: charles.beckman@jhu.eduBALTIMORE - October 17, 2007 - The Goldman Sachs Foundation (GSF) announces the national expansion of its Next Generation Venture Fund (NGVF), part of the Foundation's "Signature Initiative" to put talented young people from underrepresented backgrounds on a track to attend competitive colleges and succeed in demanding careers.
Established in 1999 as an innovative partnership between GSF and the nation’s oldest academic talent search, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY), NGVF has continued to gain momentum. With the 2003 inclusion of the Duke University Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP), and the recent addition of:
- Northwestern University Center for Talent Development (CTD), and;
- University of Denver Center for Innovative and Talented Youth (CITY);
NGVF now works as a national model of “hands-on” venture philanthropy. The Fund draws together a network of individuals, firms, and foundations who share a common goal: to provide the resources necessary for the brightest underrepresented students to reach their full potential.
“The world needs leaders from every walk of life,” said Stephanie Bell-Rose, President of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. “The Next Generation Venture Fund provides everything these children need to excel: on-campus academic enrichment programs during the summers; during the term, distance education classes; college advising; an individualized academic program; and test preparation.”
The Fund uses a tested, well-designed strategy established by its four academic talent searches that identifies gifted students at a formative stage in their lives, and cultivates their ability to compete and excel in rigorous academic and professional settings.
Starting in eighth grade, NGVF scholars receive benefits, academic opportunities and mentoring through the duration of their high school career. The outstanding students in the pilot’s first cohort to graduate from high school are now attending such selective colleges as Amherst, Georgetown, MIT, Penn, and Wesleyan, a substantial accomplishment for students who come from families of modest means in hard-pressed communities.
“As individuals, firms and foundations who invest in the Next Generation Venture Fund,” says Bell-Rose, “we not only promote the development of each of the participants to achieve his or her full potential, but we also enable society to achieve its full potential.”
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About The Goldman Sachs Foundation
The Goldman Sachs Foundation (www.gs.com/foundation) is a global philanthropic organization funded by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. The Foundation's mission is to promote excellence and innovation in education and to improve the academic performance and lifelong productivity of young people worldwide. It achieves this mission through a combination of strategic partnerships, grants, loans, private sector investments, and the deployment of professional talent from Goldman Sachs. Funded in 1999, the Foundation has awarded grants of $62 million since its inception, providing opportunities for young people in more than 20 countries.
The Foundation supplements its financial support with social and intellectual capital from Goldman Sachs. By drawing upon the firm's leadership development expertise and commitment to education, the Foundation is able to maximize the impact of its investments.