Yleana Leadership Academy

The Yleana Leadership Foundation exists to fight the cycle of entrenched poverty - which necessitates breaking the correlation between race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. To do that, we increase the selectivity of the colleges our students attend, in order to: 

[1] Increase persistence and graduation rates and access more supportive programming

[2] Secure better financial aid packages and decrease loans, allowing students to start life with less debt

[3] Increase salaries after graduation - double and triple what students would have made after a less selective college

Our population is 95% BIPOC, primarily Black and Latinx, with an average family income of $32,829. We partner with high schools and CBOs in Baltimore, Boston/North Shore MA, NYC, and Philadelphia. We are emphatically a non-creaming organization; we believe that systemic change comes in small steps by moving the thick middle of the curve, so we accept students at all GPA levels, assuming they’re willing to work hard and try new things.

Our feel is that of a startup - everyone in our small but mighty team wears multiple hats and has diverse responsibilities. You will be joining a tight-knit staff team of creative problem-solvers whose mantra is to replace “I can’t do that” with “Let’s make it happen." We are meticulous and attentive to even the smallest details. Applicants should be interested in both the quantity and breadth of work entailed in a startup/non-profit as well as feel passion for the mission of the organization.