Read Letters from Our CEO and President of the Board of Directors
Oakland Promise CEO Transition
Letters from Mia Bonta, CEO of Oakland Promise
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Dr. Michael McAfee, Oakland Promise President of Board of Directors
Dear Oakland Promise Community,
As you may all know, I was elected to the CA State Assembly to represent District 18 and was sworn in on September 7th. I appreciated that the voters decided the outcome and I will gratefully and humbly step into the role as your Assemblymember representing Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro. I look forward to continuing to be a champion for East Bay children and working families and in my new role working towards opening more doors of opportunity for underrepresented communities.
It has been an honor to serve as the inaugural CEO of Oakland Promise, committed to our mission to galvanize the Oakland community to advance equity and economic mobility for young people throughout their cradle to career achievement. That work has been accomplished by my results-based leadership team, our staff, volunteers and partners, and guided by our committed governing board members. With bittersweetness, I will certainly miss collaborating daily with our whole OP team and our many partners. This important work however, will continue during my transition, under interim leadership and with the eventual CEO that will lead Oakland Promise.
Although I have resigned from my position as CEO of Oakland Promise as of September 15th, I will be working closely with our board president Dr. Michael McAfee, President and CEO of PolicyLink, the rest of the board and our leadership team to provide a smooth transition. The board is working with a search firm to fill the CEO position. As such, I will continue to be available in a volunteer capacity until we bring on the new CEO. In the meantime, I will also be collaborating closely with our Chief Financial and Operations Officer, Rachel Westmoreland, who will become the interim CEO beginning September 16th, to ensure we have seamless implementation of our 2021 - 2025 Strategic Plan, which has been previously approved by our board. I have much faith in Rachel and the leadership team to continue to steady our ship and keep the organization focused on our mission and implementing our strategic plan.
Our critical work in this 2022 Fiscal Year includes the following:
Achieve a year over year increase in Brilliant Baby enrollment and financial coaching program participation of 25%.
Effectively communicate the launch of our Oakland Promise Scholarship Portal, and by 2025, ensure at least 80% of our families have activated their student's scholarship account by the time their student completes 5th grade.
Increase the number of OP scholarship award recipients for all Oakland Public School students 25%-30% yearly through 2025 (in College Access and Completion)
I want to assure our Oakland Promise partners, supporters, and donors that OP is well positioned to continue and enhance our support to Oakland’s young people and their families toward their college and career aspirations.
Please join me in continuing to support our students and families of Oakland by considering being a mentor for OP Scholars, donating and/or spreading the word about us on social media. And of course, please save the date and join us at our annual (virtual) Community Briefing on November 5, 2021 at 3pm. More details to come.
Finally, I want to thank my leadership team members, our staff, board and all our supporters of Oakland Promise. Instead of it being about any one individual or organization, at OP, it’s always been about a community in Oakland and beyond to collectively rise up to the occasion of creating more equity. The best is yet to come for Oakland’s young people and their families!
In Community Always,
Mia Bonta, Chief Executive Officer - Oakland Promise
Letter from Dr. Michael McAfee
President of Oakland Promise Board of Directors
Dear Oakland Promise Community,
The Oakland Promise Board of Directors congratulate Mia Bonta for being elected to the California Assembly, we thank Mia for her impactful leadership over the past 2 ½ years as CEO of Oakland Promise. After the 2019 merger of East Bay College Fund and Oakland Promise to form an integrated organization, she united the two organizations that helped us to truly become a unique 501c3 nonprofit college promise organization that focuses on the cradle to college and career dreams of Oakland’s brilliant young people and their families. Under her leadership, to date, we have now opened about 1,000 Brilliant Baby 529 College Savings Accounts, awarded 25,000 elementary students with $100 each in Kindergarten as part of their Oakland Promise Scholarship, and 2,100 high school graduates have received OP Scholarships and persistence support programming.
Under Mia’s leadership, we have made tremendous progress toward providing a continuum of support across the age ranges of young people. During the pandemic, she and her leadership team forged partnerships with key community, governmental and corporate organizations to rally support for the work Oakland Promise does in our collective effort to create equity and remove educational barriers during one of the most tumultuous periods in our national history. Over 78% of Brilliant Baby families participated in financial coaching, $2.5 million in scholarships were awarded to Kindergarteners and over 1,300 Scholars have been paired with mentors. And her partnership with #OaklandUndivided, where OP is one of the founding members, helped yield over 29,000 devices and 10,000 hotspots that were given to students from BIPOC and low-income communities in Oakland.
We are elated that Mia will continue serving Oakland children and their families in the California Assembly. Although we will miss her indelible leadership, we know she’ll be a great Assemblymember fighting for equity for families and communities in the East Bay. It’s been a joy for me and the Board to collaborate with her over these past couple of years in this significant work of empowering Oakland’s families. We wish her well!
As for the transition of leadership at Oakland Promise, the board is working with a search firm (Christina Greenberg of Edgility) to fill the CEO position. In the meantime, we are grateful that Oakland Promise is in good hands with Rachel Westmoreland as our Acting CEO as of September 16th. Rachel has been Oakland Promise’s Chief Financial and Operations Officer (CFOO) and has also led our Human Resources department during her tenure. She is an experienced Executive and Manager and the Board and I are confident the organization is headed in the right direction under her stewardship. With an approved 4-year Strategic Plan, strong leadership team in place, efficient operations and good financial status, Oakland Promise is well positioned to continue its mission to create more opportunities for Oakland to send more young people toward college and careers.
Among our initiatives this year, we will continue to:
Build out programming related to early learning and College Savings Account (CSA) awareness with a focus on our Brilliant Baby families with children ages 3-5.
Strengthen and build connectivity between programs, including Brilliant Baby to K2C hand-off, 5th to 6th transition and 8th grade high-school readiness.
Scale our advising model by growing educational partnerships with Peralta, UCs, and CSUs, and Bay Area community-based organizations to serve more students for curriculum delivery and to address the needs of our scholars to increase enrollment and persistence.
All of us on the Board are excited about the future of offering more opportunities for Oakland’s families. Our young people are our future leaders in so many fields of endeavors, deserving of our collective investment. One such young leader is Imahni Cheeks, an OP Scholar from Oakland Tech. You can read her recent compelling story here. It is my hope you will continue to join the movement in your support of Oakland Promise, whether through mentoring, volunteering, spreading the word and/or donating. To find out more about our progress and future plans, please save the date and join us at our annual (virtual) Community Briefing on November 5, 2021 at 3pm. More details to come.
Thank you for all your support!
Dr. Michael McAfee, President - Oakland Promise Board of Directors
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