Open Collective
Open Collective
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reflections and refractions: an overview of our year.
Published on December 22, 2022 by Sierra Jackson


This past year we've been a bit quiet, but working in the background to ensure we have a strong foundation moving forward.

Our very first year (FY 2020 - 21) saw immense growth in a short amount of time, then our leadership shifted and required us to restructure our workflow. While challenging, FY 2021-22's leadership shift allowed us the space to explore how The Endurance Scholarship could authentically show up for and continue to support its community. This year still saw continued growth: 

In full transparency, we'd love support in drafting our annual reports! A full FY 21-22 annual report has been in the works for the past four months but with our current team's capacity, finalizing the report has taken a lot longer than we've hoped.

Moving forward, we would love to expand our impact to award 20 Chicagoland students of color (10 higher education awards + 10 private elementary awards). Our total fundraising goal for FY 22-23 is $22K. Below is our budget breakdown:
  • $20K (awards)
  • $500 (emergency fund)
  • $500 (marketing + materials)
  • $400 (operational)
  • $300 (miscellaneous) 
An area we'd like to grow in is outreach/marketing. The Endurance Scholarship is open to non-traditional students + vocational/trade students in addition to DREAMERs and traditional post-secondary students (undergraduate - graduate level). Our awards are also open non-religious private elementary students; however, our applicants typically reflect a small pool of traditional undergraduates with a few graduate-level applicants, 87.5% of our private elementary applicants attend a religious-affiliated institution (we had 8 total private elementary applicants), and a number of self-reported DREAMERs. In FY 22-23, we would like to work towards more printed marketing materials and merch production to expand our reach and attract a diverse applicant pool.

message from our founder:
Thank you to all of you who have supported The Endurance Scholarship thus far! I am often a quiet and slow mover, but am always striving to reconfigure a world where we all have access to information and education. The task is large and I am not alone in this mission. I hope for The Endurance Scholarship to be sustainable and co-existing with other efforts of similar ethos; we're starting small but my vision (and the vision of others who join TES as it grows) is vast. Eventually, my hope for the work of The Endurance Scholarship is to support the travels of our students both domestically and abroad, offering new perspectives traditional academic institutions cannot solely create.

- Sierra