Collective Success Network

Empowering First-Gen Students For Life Success The Collective Success Network (CSN) is a non-profit that supports and empowers low-income, first-generation (LIFG) college students to achieve their academic and career aspirations through empowering mentorship, professional development, and leadership opportunities. We do this by collaborating with the wider business community to create innovative solutions to increase college-to-career success rates and build a socioeconomically diverse talent pipeline. We also aim to neutralize the stigma associated with being low-income or first-generation by guiding students to cultivate the strengths they bring to the table and by providing a safe and inclusive space where our students can be authentic, understood, and celebrated. We also emphasize strengths, such as resilience, grit, resourcefulness, responsibility, and compassion, that students from disadvantaged backgrounds bring to the table. A key aspect of our vision involves empowering students to take leadership roles in guiding and driving our programming and operations. Our steering committee is composed of both college students and professionals. We are also supporting student leaders to build campus chapters at our initial pilot sites: Drexel University (Dragons First), and Temple University (Temple First), and the University of Pennsylvania (Collective Success at Penn). CSN started under the fiscal sponsorship of the Urban Affairs Coalition in Philadelphia in Spring 2017. Leading companies such as Ernst & Young, RSM, Comcast, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and PECO collaborated with CSN to design, build, and implement pilot programs and provided in-kind contributions. In addition, EY and RSM serve as gold sponsors. Initially, our geographic focus will be the Greater Philadelphia area, understanding that the model we build has potential to be replicated in other cities.