The Gladeo Foundation’s mission is to help individuals from diverse backgrounds gain awareness, preparedness, and access to upwardly mobile careers. We're building a more inclusive, equitable, and prepared workforce of the future.

There is an education and employment crisis in the U.S.  According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student debt has increased nearly fifteen-fold since 1999 from $80 billion to over $1.2 trillion in 2013, making student loan debt the second highest form of consumer debt behind mortgages.  At the same time, about 44 percent of young bachelor’s degree holders are underemployed or working jobs for which they are overqualified.  And while the high school and college graduation rates for African Americans and Hispanics have improved, large disparities continue to exist.  African Americans and Hispanics, who make up about one-quarter of the workforce represent 44% of the country’s high school dropouts and just 15% of its bachelor degree earners.  The African American jobless rate is still twice that of whites.  The workforce also continues to be stratified by race with African Americans and Hispanics grossly underrepresented in the higher-paying industry sectors.  Young Americans, especially African Americans and Hispanics, are being saddled with a debt burden that could cripple their ability to achieve a sustainable economic future and it is becoming more and more evident that a bachelor’s degree alone is not enough. And while many factors contribute to this problem, Gladeo is addressing the gap between school and career.  With the ever-evolving labor market in a global economy and the increasing number of college grads entering it, young people need a solid way to educate themselves about their career options and to better plan and prepare for their futures, beyond merely getting a degree.

You usually don’t need a connection to get a job in fast food or retail, but for a coveted position that offers benefits, job seekers actively use family and friend connections to gain an edge on the competition and get a foot in the door.  In many cases, it’s that first entry-level opportunity that makes all the difference. The early opportunity that grants him or her the chance to escape the vicious catch-22 that so many entry-level job seekers have encountered:  how am I supposed to gain experience if you won’t hire anyone without experience?  Unfortunately, many underrepresented minorities, immigrant groups, as well as people of lower socioeconomic means, are less likely to have access to the kinds of social networks that might help them gain entry-level job access to certain industry sectors.  Researchers say that this “network effect” is keeping some minority groups out of certain industry sectors (higher-paying ones like executive, technology, medicine) and driving them continuously into ones where they might have an existing network or ones that don’t require them (service, retail, construction).  Gladeo bridges the network gap for underrepresented minorities by helping them gain meaningful access to contacts and opportunities within industries to which they might otherwise have difficulty gaining access.