Posse Foundation, New York

Nonprofit or community organization

Last modified: July 30, 2012, 4:54 PM

The Posse Foundation is a nationally recognized youth leadership development and college access program that identifies, recruits, and trains diverse teams – posses – of public high school students and sends them to top colleges and universities. To date, a total of 4,223 Posse Scholars have been accepted into top-tier institutions of higher education throughout the country. These young people have received $485 million in full-tuition leadership scholarships from Posse's college and university partners and have been agents of positive change on their campuses.

Posse's unique and carefully structured, three-month selection process identifies candidates using criteria beyond academic achievement, including leadership talent, desire to succeed and ability to work constructively with people from diverse backgrounds. Posse's high school through college programming makes it one of the most comprehensive programs of its kind in the nation. In 2007, The Posse Foundation was identified by President Obama as one of 10 national non-profit organizations to receive a portion of his Nobel Peace Prize grant. The foundation is poised to double in size over the next ten years and dramatically increase its national impact.

Posse's current university partners include Babson, Bard, Boston University, Brandeis, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Carleton, Centre, Colby, The College of Wooster, Connecticut College, Denison, DePauw, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Grinnell, Hamilton, Kalamazoo, Lafayette, Lawrence, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke, Northwestern, Oberlin, Pepperdine, Pomona, Sewanee, Syracuse, Texas A&M, Trinity, Tulane, Union, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Vanderbilt, and Wheaton.

Posse's 2012 budget of $14.8 million supports programs in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City and Washington, D.C. Posse has a staff of 125 nationally. There is a national board of directors, as well as advisory boards in each city.