2022 Second Day Impact Report
Introduction
The 2021-2022 school year for Second Day represented an inflection point for Second Day. Our first year of programming was a blur, our second was building on what we learned, and this past year has been settling into a groove. We’ve continued to deepen our understanding of how best to support folks along their journey to building an impactful career, while simultaneously building a sustainable foundation for Second Day beyond the co-founders. We welcomed our initial set of external board members, grew our budget by over 50%, and increased our impact across the country.
As we look ahead, we still are determined to do more. We are continuing to iterate on our programs and look for opportunities to increase the reach of information on social impact careers. Yet, we don’t want to ever forget our roots. Thank you to everyone who has helped make Second Day possible and we hope to continue to grow in this community of change with you.
With gratitude,
Mariam and Phil
Co-Executive Directors
The Impact Fellowship
The 2021-2022 school year represented another great year for the Impact Fellowship. We supported 40 fellows across more than a dozen organizations. With a summer, fall, and spring cohort, we’ve been able to support folks year-round at the time and place that is most helpful to them. One of the core themes of this past year was burnout. Many fellows felt (and seemed) totally exhausted by the combination of school, covid, internships, and everything else on their plate. Our facilitators did an amazing job of holding space for renewal and rest, while also providing accountability for fellows to keep making progress on their goals. While the improvement and outcomes aren’t quite as strong as last year, we are still incredibly proud of the increases in self-assessments and outcomes.
For the chart below, we measure five key performance indicators that are important not just for getting a first job in social impact, but for building a career with meaning. The post-program scores increased noticeably, with particularly large increases in understanding of the social sector and having a professional network.
Pre/Post Ratings from the 2021-2022 Program
Effectiveness of Second Day compared to other career resources
The next two metrics are more direct questions about the need and effectiveness of the program. Every single participant gave at least a 6/10 for recommending with program, with 80% rating it a 9 or 10 out of 10. This is exceptional, but not as strong as the 87% from last year. Even ore encouraging is the need for programs and supports like this. 97% of students reported that Second Day resources were more helpful or significantly more helpful than other resources they have access to. It is powerful as we continue to do this work to ground ourselves in the need for this work, even among students at very wealthy institutions.
Post-Program job placements
Finally, we looked at first jobs for students one month after graduating from the program (and for the vast majority, graduating from college). Over half of the participants had already secured a social impact job by June (compared to a national rate of ~20% from students pursuing nonprofit roles from elite colleges). 10% took jobs that are ‘non-social impact,’ which is about consistent with past cohorts. From building skills to paying off debt, we discuss in our program consistently the goal of building an impactful career rather than just focusing on the first role. Another 31% were still searching or taking some time off after the rigors of school and internships. We will continue to support those folks as they figure out their next steps. Notably, the average starting salary for Second Day graduates taking a role is almost $64,000, above the median for all starting salaries of college graduates and significantly above the average for first social impact roles. We are proud of this number given the emphasis we put on understanding what options are out there and negotiating for salaries that you need.
A note about on-campus resources for social impact career development
While 74% of students reported that career centers were helpful for traditional careers, only 6% reported that career centers were helpful for social impact careers. This finding has helped reinforce the need for sharing the resources that we have developed with college students across the country and figuring out a way to better partner with career centers across the country. Many of these centers have limited resources to navigate the broad and complex world of social change and we believe that there is an important role for us to play in partnering with them to reach more students.
Expanding the program for equitable access
As we look toward the future, we continue to examine elements of our program model and experiment with new approaches. Over the years, we’ve heard from numerous younger and older folks who wanted to take part in the program. We know that restricting it to only people that are attending a four-year school is limiting the reach of those who could benefit from this program. And so this summer, we decided to open up the program for anyone who wanted to take part in a paid social impact internship and support programming.
This model will be an important challenge for us to solve for, because the needs of people with different ages, educational backgrounds, and viewpoints will diverge even more strongly than our programs have to date. We are planning to shift our programming from class-style weekly programming to a burst model where participants are expected to take part in a certain number of sessions, rather than every single one of them. We’ll still provide connections to mentors, regular check-ins with a Second Day point person, and opportunities for community building, but this model will allow folks to opt-in to what is most needed in the current moment for them. It will be crucial over this coming year for us to closely watch and understand differential outcomes based on this shift in programming.
Launchpad and Community Programs
While our main focus has been on Impact Fellows, we are also focused on supporting a broader range of people interested in social impact careers. Since we are able to support less than 10% of our applicants, we don’t want a rejection from an internship to be a rejection from resources and the community.
For the past two years, we tried this through the Community Scholars Program (CSP). These folks weren’t accepted for internships, but we offered them a spot in our small group programming either in their own groups or integrated into groups with Fellows. There were a lot of success stories from this, but as we’ve looked at the data and conducted exit interviews, CSP students are consistently less engaged than Impact Fellows, hurting the morale of both fellows and facilitators. While the cost of supporting Impact Fellows is covered by their internship host, we’ve had to rely on philanthropy to cover the cost of Community Scholars, to mixed success.
As a result, we are shifting our focus from the coming year by winding down the Community Scholars Program and investing in other resources for individuals interested in social impact careers. Mariam and Phil both host open office hours, do events with community partners and provide additional support to individuals selected as finalists. Yet the deepest impact is likely felt through the Launchpad and training partnerships.
The Launchpad
The Launchpad is a free resource for students interested in social impact careers. We spent hundreds of hours compiling more than 20 career guides that detail different social impact career paths like community organizing or nonprofit fundraising. It also includes lists of fellowships, job boards, and dozens of other resources to help make it easier to launch a career in social impact. We’ve partnered with dozens of schools and organizations to get the word out there about this resource and over 1,000 have engaged with it significantly. We’re hoping to significantly increase the usage of these resources in the years to come!
Training Partnerships
In order to increase the reach of our programming, we offered similar intensive coaching and small group sessions to other impact-driven organizations with their own internship programs. Four of the highlights from this past year included:
Natural Areas Conservancy works with the NYC Park service to preserve and support more than 20,000 acres of natural space across New York City. They run an internship program for ~25 CUNY students to gain exposure to environmental field work and tools. We're providing space for reflection and learning how those tools could be applied to launch environmental careers
Arnold Ventures is an awesome foundation in Houston. We are helping to run an intern program to help expose college students from lower-income backgrounds to careers in philanthropy. The programming be a combination of panels, discernment conversations, and community support to thrive during their internship
Coding it Forward places ~170 engineers and technical folks with summer placements at state, local, and federal agencies. We are running a small group program with a dozen facilitators to build stronger communities and talk about how to best leverage this experience for future career opportunities in civic tech
Forest Foundation places 50+ interns at local Boston nonprofits to expose them to the sector and help those organizations increase their capacity. We're providing programming support on how to thrive during those placements and leverage the paid internships for a full-time role in the sector after graduation
Looking to the future
As we look to the future, our goal is still clearly in mind. We want to transform access to social impact careers so that it isn’t restricted to those wealthy and determined enough to make the sacrifices required. Through improved role scoping, paid internships, transparent hiring processes, and more, we believe that we are on the precipice of transforming how this sector thinks about talent. We’re so grateful to the hundreds of supporters that have helped make this work possible this year and we can’t wait for the year to come!
Theory Of Change
The Problem
As much progress as our global community has made over the last several decades, we have left millions of people behind. Whether we are talking about access to housing, education, quality healthcare, or environmental justice, there are clear breaks in our system that have prevented our collective advancement. Because these issues are deeply complex and inter-related, it is critical to ensure that talented, committed, and passionate people are spending their entire careers untangling them. In particular, people with lived experiences and connections to communities that have been historically marginalized. So how are we doing?
Not so great. 87% of nonprofit executives are White and 68% of executive directors come from at least an upper middle-class upbringing. In a broad survey of nonprofits in the Boston area about 50% said their talent pipelines weren’t strong enough and 90% said their talent pipelines weren’t diverse enough.
These stats are not new. And while the conversation of how to create more diversity in the social sector has been ongoing for years, the reality is that less than 1% of philanthropy dollars goes towards any sort of talent or leadership development interventions. This is a challenge, but also an opportunity. Because the sector is so under-resourced, a relatively small investment can have a huge return on impact for nonprofits and social enterprises across the country.
The talent pipeline is broken right from the start. Over half of college seniors report wanting to have a social impact in their career and would be eager to do so if they could overcome the barriers put up by many organizations and institutions:
70% of nonprofits don’t spend a single dollar on their recruiting budget, jeopardizing their chance to raise awareness of opportunities beyond their traditional social circles.
58% of nonprofit internships are unpaid, making it much harder for students that don’t have outside financial support to gain the necessary experience that many organizations look for in entry-level hires.
Overall, only 43% of college students found their career centers helpful, with that number significantly lower among students interested in social impact careers.
Students interested in social impact cited a lack of visible role models, clear career paths, and lack of social support as their biggest barriers to finding a social impact job
As a result of these barriers, the interest of many students in social impact careers often leads to a dead end. Only 10% of job applications among college seniors ultimately go to a social impact organization and the population that does ultimately take a social impact job skews disproportionately from privileged backgrounds. But we are on the precipice of change and we believe that we can be the difference in transforming career trajectories.
Theory of Change
Second Day outputs and short-term impact
Second Day’s short-term focus is to dismantle inequitable talent pipelines into social impact. By creating paid work opportunities and access to professional development and mentorship for students who have historically been shut-out of entry-level jobs in the social sector, our future changemakers are able to build skills and career capital within nonprofits and social enterprises right out of college, putting them on a track for growth and leadership early in their careers. Beyond the immediate economic and equity wins that come from focusing on young talent, we believe that this approach offers significant long-term implications for social movements. 91% of students that participate in our programs say that it makes them more likely to enter social impact right out of school. Over 3 out of 4 participants in our Impact Fellowship or Community Scholars Program take a social impact job as their first post-grad job. See below for more program details and impact measurement.
Long-term impact
The recent Race to Lead survey of employees across the social sector showed that a higher percentage of people of color (50%) aspired to leadership positions than white staff (40%). There are currently dozens of organizations and initiatives such as ProInspire and the Institute for Nonprofit Practice that are working to support junior-level staff from diverse backgrounds to build the skills, garner the support, and maintain the balance they need to step into leadership positions. As our program alumni and the organization grows older, we anticipate more actively supporting our alumni into leadership positions through partnerships with other organizations and building out programs ourselves. During the current program, we spend time talking about sustainability in the work and how to build career capital over multiple jobs, but the most important thing we can do is build long-term pipelines is build a community of peer support. This is why we focus so much energy on forging relationships within and across cohorts so that they can help each other to move up through the social sector leadership ranks. As leadership becomes more diverse, it will provide a positive cycle through more role models, more equitable hiring practices, and mentors for new generations of diverse talent.
Sector outcomes
As our budding leaders move up the ranks within their organizations and industries, they’ll not only bring the skills that they’ve developed both within Second Day and on the job, but also the lived experiences they have with housing insecurity, educational disparities, the criminal justice system, and income inequality. As social sector strategist Baljeet Sandhu puts it, “those with lived experience are currently treated as ‘informants’, not change-makers.” Sandhu rightly points out people and communities with lived experience are essential to social change, but leadership development and educational programs are often made inaccessible to those who are best positioned to take on challenges in their own communities. If we put these ‘informants’ at the forefront of solving these social challenges by promoting them to roles with more visibility, leadership, and resources, our theory is that they will help social sector organizations unlock more innovative, empathetic, and effective solutions to our communities’ most pressing problems.
Why Lived Experience Matters
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Focusing on core challenges rather than band-aid solutions
Entrepreneurs and innovators naturally solve problems that they have faced themselves.
The same thing applies for social change. This is one of the reasons why funders focus more on financial literacy (23k grants) than on advocating for higher wages (11K grants), because they have faced the challenges of financial literacy firsthand, but often have less relevant or recent exposure to working a minimum wage job.
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Creating more effective and lasting change
Race to lead survey shows that all staff on average are more likely to stay at an organization and cite equitable hiring practices for organizations led by people of color vis a vis white-led organizations.
What is needed for change isn’t always intuitive. Take ‘housing first.’ Traditional charities used housing as a carrot - if you stayed sober, you would get housing. Housing first flipped the model - provided housing so you have support to get sober. Research has shown this is way 2-3x more effective than the traditional model. This would be intuitive to someone who suffered through addiction, but took more than 30 years to be widely implemented because few people with lived experience with substance abuse got into leadership positions.
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Reframing purpose from charity to justice and solidarity
While charity is beautiful and is essential for social cohesion, it can also lead to ongoing cycles of need. justice and solidarity is even better.
Think about South Korea as an example. Following the Korean War, US aid did a lot of good in South Korea. But what ultimately transformed the country into a global powerhouse was internally-fueled innovation and growth. Between 1962 and 1989, GDP per capita grew over 5,000% and South Korea went from receiving more US aid than almost any other country to distributing it around the world. Charity is never a substitute for justice.
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Leaders with lived experience will be more likely to focus on traditionally neglected and underinvested issues
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Leaders with lived experience lead happier and more effective organizations
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Someone from the community is the right person to support a new future for that community
Our Approach
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Diversity
The social sector is meant to serve all of us, so it is crucial that its workforce reflect this nation. We prioritize supporting first generation students, students of color, and other students with lived experience that are best positioned to understand the challenges we face.
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Mentorship
Our powerful network of social impact professionals act as advocates and champions that help our fellows navigate their professional journeys.
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Professional Development
In partnership with top social impact employers, we deliver a curriculum* and work experiences that ensure our fellows are well-equipped to thrive in impact-driven internships and future full-time roles.
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Community of peers
There is power in numbers. By connecting with peers who share their values, future changemakers support each other in building mission-driven careers.
Our curriculum for the Impact Fellowship consists of the below learning goals, key topics, and/or resources:
Professional Development
Workplace communication
Productivity best practices
Project management
Asking for and receiving feedback
Professional advocacy
Anti-racist advocacy in the workplace
Personal branding
Emotional health and wellbeing
Financial management
Social Sector Exploration
Different types of funding models
Impact evaluation
Common career paths
Nonprofit industrial complex
Philanthropy and power dynamics
Effective altruism, circular economy, doughnut economics, and finding your theory of change
Career Planning
Lists of organizations that have been collected and vetted by the Second Day team
Templates and guidelines for tracking job application process
One on one coaching on interviews, cover letters, resumes, etc.
Connections with mentors working in the space