Vision For The Future
Focusing on STEM and financial education, Empower Yourself is a Massachusetts nonprofit which inspires and trains the next generation of under-resourced urban students for high-paying careers in growth industries. We currently serve 700 students a year, ages 7-18.
Here is an overview of our vision for the future. It outlines how we will scale our work to reach more youth, deepen engagement, and do more to close the racial wealth gap—in Brockton, in Massachusetts, and beyond.
Our Work & Our Impact
Black communities in the U.S. face a profound and persistent wealth gap, with the typical White household holding over nine times the wealth of a Black household—$250,400 versus $27,100 in 2021. These inequities stem from structural barriers—including access to employment, education, and homeownership — that continue to hinder Black wealth-building.
Our home base is Brockton, a city whose residents are majority people of color, and which experiences a poverty rate higher than that of most other communities in the Boston metropolitan area. We also work with other communities in Massachusetts, Chicago, New Orleans, New York, and others.
Empower Yourself works directly with students in two main ways—STEM programming and financial education.
STEM Programming: We reach 200 students a year with out-of-school-time STEM programs. These innovative and inspiring programs enlist a range of organizational partners in the work. Our partners in the out-of-school-time programs include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Bridgewater State School of Aviation, MIT Lincoln Labs, the Boston Museum of Science. During the school year, in our Saturday Aviation Program, students learn about flying and fixing planes, building and coding drones, and understanding the science of building rockets and putting them in orbit and space. As another example, our five-week Summer STEM and Aviation Camp provide students with an opportunity to learn more about engineering, aviation, robotics, and science to prepare them for careers of the future. A team from our Aviation Program placed first in the regional competition and third nationally in the National Aerial Robotic Competition. All our STEM programs have a common goal—to expose our students to and inspire them about 21st-century technology and the STEM jobs and careers of the future.
In addition to our direct STEM programming, we also share the Empower Yourself STEM curriculum and methods with school districts in Massachusetts and with other cities such as Chicago and Detroit. We help districts adapt and implement the program based on their resources and needs, support them in developing the needed partnerships with universities and other organizations, and train local teachers to deliver the content.
Financial Education: Our financial literacy programs aim to change how young people think about economics and their financial management while encouraging informed decision making – we currently serve over 500 young people every year. We offer year-round classes in Brockton (and by Zoom to other places in Massachusetts) which teach economic and financial literacy concepts including budgeting and savings. We offer programs for a range of ages, but the focus is middle school. In addition, our Investment Club, run during the school year for middle and high school students in partnership with BASE Chicago, provides students with an opportunity to simulate investments in real stocks and participate in a nationwide stock investment competition. In 2024, Empower Yourself students took the top five positions in this competition with over 150 participants.
Beyond the impact we have by working directly with students from lower-income families, we advise schools and train teachers on how to deliver their own year-round financial literacy classes. We also support schools in creating their own investment clubs.
These programs are intentionally designed to drive towards our intended outcomes and overall goal as an organization.
Scaling our impact over the next two years
Beyond understanding the data on how many students participate in these programs, we are also seeking to learn more about our longer-term impact. One way we do this is by staying in close contact with our alumni. Our former students have been accepted at some of the top colleges and universities in the country. As they prepare to fulfill their roles as corporate, community, and global leaders, some come back to mentor and teach Empower Yourself summer program participants in conjunction with our corporate partners.
Empower Yourself is working toward a world where students have the pathways to high-paying careers and have the knowledge for how to save and grow their money to close the wealth gap.
We have two strong programs that support this vision—STEM education and financial literacy—with well-developed program delivery models and a strong track record of engaging students from low-income families.
Looking at the next two years, our primary focus will be on scaling our financial literacy programming, especially in schools beyond Massachusetts. Students from lower-income families across the country face a critical need for high-quality financial literacy education, yet many communities lack the capacity to deliver effective programs. Empower Yourself is uniquely positioned to help close this gap. One of our greatest strengths lies in our proven ability to engage students and get them excited for financial literacy—and in equipping other communities with the tools and knowledge to replicate that success.
A secondary goal is to continue to grow STEM programs, giving more students from different school districts in Massachusetts the opportunity to participate in high-quality After-School STEM programs, as well as recruiting and preparing more students to participate in STEM opportunities from partner organizations like the MIT Lincoln Lab.
To scale our impact, we will need to invest in strengthening our organizational infrastructure, growing and deepening our partnerships in Massachusetts and priority communities in other states, and further formalizing and codifying key components of our curriculum and methods so that they can be more easily replicated by others. To accomplish this, we will be increasing our fundraising efforts to ensure we have the necessary resources to deliver on this ambitious strategy.
