OneGoal: A Social Impact Solution Where Your Journey Can Become Your Genius
A Conversation with Melissa Connelly and Amanda Seider from OneGoal
Melissa Connelly (left) is the CEO of OneGoal, a national postsecondary access and success organization. Melissa has spent more than 15 years in education, leveraging her experiences, empathy, and drive to make certain her accomplishments are not an anomaly but the norm for underserved youth. Melissa also serves on the board of directors of Reading Partners, the board of trustees of Dominican University, and is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois-Chicago, as well as a Masters of Arts in Teaching and Masters of Education Administration from Dominican University. She is an alumna of the prestigious Surge Institute Fellowship for emerging leaders of color in education. Even with these accomplishments, Melissa is most proud of her work as a mother to AJ and Addae.
Amanda Seider (right) is the Executive Director of OneGoal. Amanda grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston and is a proud graduate of Boston Public Schools. She attended Harvard College as a first-generation college student, where she participated in numerous programs to promote college access to low-income youth in Boston and Cambridge. Her commitment to expanding educational opportunity for all led her to become a founding member of the Teach For America — Massachusetts regional team, and she is also the former chair of the board of trustees for KIPP Massachusetts. Currently, she serves on the boards of Teach For America — Massachusetts and NextGen Talent. She loves to spend time outdoors, share a laugh with friends and family, and chase after her young children.
Kevin Robinson: Melissa and Amanda, I‘d like to start with each of you sharing your personal journey. What led you to the social impact space?
Amanda Seider: I grew up here in Boston in Dorchester in a low-income neighborhood and family situation. From a very young age it was made clear to me that if people saw potential in you, you were given many opportunities.
There were students who were just as deserving and just as bright and for whatever reason, those students were not directed into those opportunities. As a result, from my own experience in the Boston public schools where I was tracked from a very young age, it resulted in the system identifying me with college potential. I became very aware of the injustice within the system. And so I approach my work at OneGoal with an experience that recognizes just how often it comes down to other people's perception of students which may determine what opportunities are available to them. We can do better as a city, as a society and as a world — recognizing that all young people have the capacity to succeed. I’m excited to work here at OneGoal because we're looking to change that mindset.
Robinson: I just wanted to touch on one aspect of what you shared. I know you mentioned unfairness, but if you had to identify one prominent barrier that you found yourself facing again and again and again on your journey, what would that be?
Seider: You asked for one, but I’ll share two. First, I want to stress that the financial barriers are real. For example, I couldn't take piano lessons, or go on a field trip, because those things had an economic impact on my family.
The other barrier that I've come up against so often was just not knowing what I didn't know. There's a game, and some people seemed to know the rules, or seemed to know what type of school presents what type of opportunity, I didn’t have the experienced game players around me in my family. Now I am very sympathetic to students or Fellows who are being expected to operate in a system in which the rules are not known or explicit, or the guidance is not clear or consistent, or the outcome relies on luck. It was difficult because I had to make some pretty big decisions without all of the pieces and knowing that I didn't have all the pieces can also undermine your confidence and undermine the kinds of things that you strive toward.
Robinson: Thank you. That is helpful and very thoughtful. Melissa, you're up.
Melissa Connelly: I am really challenged by everything Amanda described. I’ll start with the fact that anybody who knows me knows that I perpetually root for the underdog, and I think it's because I was one. I grew up one of six kids in a single mother home, growing up low income and in under resourced neighborhoods.
What that then led to was a lot of rebellion on my part. In eighth grade I missed more than fifty days of school and was automatically enrolled in a truancy program in high school. I was assigned a social worker at a very young age, and admittedly was on a path to nowhere, at least nowhere that anybody would want their children to be out of path to. I was incredibly blessed that the social worker who was assigned to me, Mrs. Jeter, was a saint. She was just one of those educators who didn't see her job description as what her job actually was. She saw her job as truly loving on any child that came into her office! Because of that, she saw more in me than I was able to see myself and helped me see what could be possible if I worked as hard at things like school as I was working at in terms of getting into trouble. She also taught me lessons around self-advocacy and navigating the bureaucracy to get what I truly needed out of my education. In many ways it became this fire in me that really taught me how to fight for what I deserved. So, I have spent my entire career doing that, but not just for me, but for kids like me.
Robinson: That leads me to a question I have for both of you: Prior to your involvement in social impact or your role at OneGoal, at what point did you discover your genius?
Connelly: I actually answered a similar question in a conversation with a student recently! I said that the beautiful thing about my journey, and the thing that I wish for all students is that at a very young age I learned that the things that made me unique and different were assets, not deficits. For example, I grew up in a home where there wasn't a lot of love for blackness and that meant I was forced to learn how to code switch and to navigate really challenging racial conversations. I had to learn to develop a strong sense of self, regardless of what others thought of me. The world tells you that a challenge is a deficit. It's something to overcome. It's a barrier. When I realized that I can honor duality and the fact that I can code switch, the fact that I can work across lines of difference, those challenges became assets. I know what it's like to get work done when you have lost heat and electricity in a night, and how that builds resilience. Right? That's not something to be ashamed of. That's something to be proud of. And what does that mean for how you can transfer and translate those skills to other areas of your life. I am so grateful that I learned that in adolescence, and not when many of us learn those skills, in late adulthood. We realize, oh, all these things that I felt shameful about are actually gifts to the world and make me unique and make me stronger, and it's about translating those lessons to the work and to my life. It's the message that I share with all of our kids. Recognize that the things that the world has told you are your deficits, your problems or your challenges are actually your unique gifts. Your charge is to figure out how to translate them, so that others see that, too.
Robinson: That's an amazing and very, very compelling message. Amanda, I’d ask you a similar question. Please share with us your genius, when you realized it and how you’ve applied it?
Seider: In some ways I think mine is similar to Melissa's story. It took me a while to realize that we sometimes erect barriers to our own genius. Again, growing up low income in a Black neighborhood, there were some great things about that and there were also ways in which you internalize society’s negative messages
I had an opportunity to attend a private school for one year, in the Boston area on full scholarship for sixth grade. I went to observe and to interact with students and faculty for a day as part of the admissions process. I remember one of the teachers was really surprised that I was helping the other students with their math problems, and my mother was furious at the teacher’s reaction. In that moment, I realized people just are going to be surprised by my genius, but maybe they shouldn't be. Similarly, when I attended Harvard College, I very quickly experienced academic challenges. I remember wondering “Did I make a mistake?” I then realized that nobody made a mistake, I deserved to be there as much as anyone else. I had to realize that I couldn’t accept other’s perceptions and I had to consciously work to not internalize some of those barriers. So, I believe that I realized my genius when I decided not to allow other people's filters or archetypes to hold me back.
Robinson: Continuing with your respective journeys — starting with Amanda, how did you get to OneGoal?
Seider: How did I get here? I remember when OneGoal was exploring establishing a location in Massachusetts. I was at Teach for America at the time, and I remember my predecessor came to the office to meet with our executive director, and I remember reading about the program and thinking “Oh, wow! This sounds really interesting.” Maybe this is something I’d want to get into, but for a lot of reasons, it wasn't the right time for that transition. Subsequently, I was ready for a new opportunity, and at the same time OneGoal was looking for its next executive director in Massachusetts. The goals of the organization resonated so deeply with me that it was a perfect fit.
Robinson: Melissa, same question to you.
Connelly: I started teaching in Chicago in 2006, and I taught literally less than a mile away from where the OneGoal founder taught. We both taught fifth grade. He was in a second year as an educator when I was in my first year as an educator. We knew all the same people. My first year, I made my whole fifth grade class theme about college. Our behavior system was based on kids earning diplomas, and as a first-year teacher I took my ten- and eleven-year-old students on their first college visit to my Alma Mater, the University of Illinois, Chicago campus. It was so ingrained in me that the difference between the life I was able to provide my own children and the life those who didn't finish high school were able to provide their children, was not based on intelligence or on capability, but was based on the piece of paper that I had earned. How do we set students up for their long-term goals and aspirations? I was thinking about their adulthood and their career. I ended up as an educator staying with my students, and so I taught them fifth grade through eighth grade. Then, when they went to high school, I actually transitioned to a job where I was training other high school teachers who were then teaching my kids.
I followed my students until they became college freshmen. I had this moment in which I was watching the choices that they were making, this same group of sixty kids, and I realized that I made this promise to them when they were ten and eleven, and now I’m sending them to a system that is quick to support them on this journey. At that same time, I reunited with Jeff Nelson, who, in 2007, founded OneGoal. Learning about it, I was so excited about the model wherein educators were actually at the center of helping our students answer these questions: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” ”How will you get there?” Asking those questions was exactly what Mrs. Jeter did for me in my journey, and so it just made sense. In 2014, I joined OneGoal as a postsecondary team member in Chicago, and coincidentally it was the same year that my original class of fifth graders became college freshmen. It just meant so much to me that I could continue with them on this journey through my work with OneGoal and have continued to follow them since. I've now been at OneGoal for nine years. I went from being a regional program team member to leading our national program, to receiving the true gift of being appointed CEO and operating in that role for the last three and a half years.
Robinson: Adding to your earlier perspectives, Amanda, please describe the OneGoal model and what makes it unique and whether you’ve implemented the national model in lockstep in Massachusetts?
Seider: I'll start with what is unique because that’s the thing that just excites me the most. It is a deep partnership focused on working with schools and districts to reimagine what postsecondary planning and support is. We work with high schools to bring credit bearing courses into the high school day that target students who fall in a middle GPA range, not students who are necessarily already on a college going path or postsecondary path. We know that these students have that genius and that potential to do whatever they want to in this world. We then partner with the school to implement our model curriculum and identify an educator who will deliver the course curriculum. Importantly, we supply the coaching and training for that educator to make sure that they are able to lead their students through this journey. What makes our program stand out is that it extends from junior year in high school into and through that first year postsecondary education. Students not only graduate high school but are set up for success by the end of that first year of postsecondary education by understanding the resources available to them and how to navigate the postsecondary experience. Our model begins with several fundamental questions: “Who are you?”, “What is important to you?” “What is important to your community?” ”What would you like your life to be after high school?”, and “How do we develop a plan for that?” Now, let's figure out what kinds of programs or schools will get you there, and we walk through that experience together to make sure that students create their own vision. It's what sets us apart, because our model is so integrated in partnership with our students, their schools, and their school districts by envisioning what postsecondary support can look like.
We have a model, a curriculum and a unified approach that results in a clarity of vision for our students.
Robinson: That’s fantastic. Amanda, from a social impact perspective, what do you believe is the biggest issue facing our society?
Seider: That's a big question. One of the things we also do is partner with postsecondary institutions to make sure that those institutions are best set up for our students when they get there. One of the biggest or most important challenges ahead of us is, how do we navigate this moment where we can and should be thinking differently and exploring new ways of doing things versus the inertia of falling back into how it's been done. That's not just a commentary on post 2020 world. How do we refuse to accept systems that are not serving our students or students like them, or marginalize people in general? Do we have the will or have the courage, and the creativity and the discipline to create something new and different and to perpetuate that creative thinking from an equity-centered perspective? While that’s a really big answer to a really big question, it's key because again it requires courage, political will, financial resources, and let’s be real, energy and most of all hope and optimism that a different and new world is possible. In this particular moment, I worry we may not have all the things we need to have in place to get to the new world that we know is possible. So, it's really a question of what are we going to do?
Robinson: We know we have people like you and Melissa, and that's a good start in my view. Melissa, the same questions. What are some of the challenges that you face, some of the challenges that you've overcome, and where do you see OneGoal headed?
Connelly: As I mentioned, I was a staff member at OneGoal for about six years before I became CEO. So, I watched us grow from the scrappy, entrepreneurial non-profit — we've got this great thing. Now we need to ask, “How do we do it better?” "How do we do it in different places?” The real moment awakening is asking whether we continue to think about our work in a way that is one city at a time. Does that, fundamentally change the reality for all low-income students across the country who deserve better? The honest answer was no, absolutely no. There are four million low-income students who enter eleventh grade each year without the resources they need to adequately answer the questions, “What will I be when I grow up?” and “How will I get there?” This is not something we are building into the DNA of our education system. What needs to happen in order for us to at OneGoal to no longer be needed and to be out of business, which should be the goal of any non-profit, is to confront the ways in which we continue to illuminate and gather evidence of impact, and truly understand what the difference is for our students why it works, so that we can scale ideas, not just scale a program. We are going to have to think differently about the ways in which we partner, so that it is not only one district at a time, but about the systems themselves. That has forced us to be in this moment where we've got to honor the proximity that is required to do this work, the relational components, and the parts of this work about the actual specific postsecondary landscape in a region.
We also must honor and think about ways in which we unlock the redesign this work requires to ensure that all students have a true equitable opportunity to achieve their greatest postsecondary aspirations. That's leading us to a place where we are doing more of the grassroots work partnering with students and with educators to ensure that they have what they need to be successful today, but also partnering with systems to ensure that they're redesigning this work for tomorrow. We have launched into this phase of OneGoal that is about transformation. How do we evolve from being a programmer to being a different way to support our young people across the country, and then how do we scale? If success is defined by going from 10,000 to 12,000 to 13,000 students, we’re never going to solve the ails of our society. Instead, success must be understanding the challenges in front of our young people, and then breathing forth and illuminating the solutions to help redesign the systems that have perpetuated those ails for generations.
The future of OneGoal is supporting leaders like Amanda, to think about the system in which we’ve operated, and the different ways to partner with the system to ensure that we are reimagining what the support for our young people could be in the future.
Robinson: That is so well said. You captured a number of the questions that I was going to pose; particularly, how you intended to advance your partnerships and the rigor with which you define and measure success. The one thing that we haven't focused on specifically is how the issues of race as well as gender are woven into your model, and woven in both your actual and your proposed solutions?
Connelly: Yes, I have a perspective on issues of race and gender that are again deeply rooted in growing up in a home where I had to constantly honor duality, and multiple truths. I am obsessed with the “Why?” Racism is such a powerful force that our society has not been able to resolve generation after generation after generation; and in fact, I would argue, especially as of late, the divisiveness in our society has in many ways deepened. Where I struggle, because it just doesn't make sense to me, and it doesn’t make sense because it was not designed to make sense, racism is a social construct, not a reality. Then I think you can ground it in other things, like humanity, right? Part of why racism has been such an effective divisive force is because it has literally been a tool to make some people less human than others. When what matters most, and we should all be able to agree, is honoring our shared humanity. I start there because that's what our program does is honor our children's whole humanity. We say you are a full human being and you need to understand who you are. You need to understand how that fits in the broader social concept construct. You need to love who you are and love others. You need to ensure that your sense of self is positive, affirming, and gives you the power to chase your dreams to be a successful positive contributor to society. Our program starts there. For instance, I'm a black woman from the southwest side of Chicago who loves my brown skin. How I show up in the world has been to overcome extreme adversity, and I’m incredibly proud of that.
The majority of our students are black and Latinx. We have to make sure students love themselves, and I would argue, even if our students weren't predominantly black and Latinx that is equally as important. If you look at the first six weeks of programming, our focus is understanding who you are and loving it. Understand why you might not love it because of the broader social construct where we live, and learning how to overcome that, and use the adversity for progress. Is that a racial justice curriculum? I am proud to say, I don't think so. Is it humane curriculum? Absolutely. We teach our students to honor their humanity. If we can all get on the same page as educators, there will be a lot less divisiveness in our society about what our kids deserve and how to make that happen.
Robinson: I would say that you and Amanda have the secret sauce. Given that, as I asked Amanda, what do you believe are the primary issues facing us as a society that social impact solutions may help address or resolve?
Connelly: My response is both a heart and a head answer. My heart answer is as a society we're going to address our nation's biggest threats and injustices. We must move from a scarcity and fear mindset to an abundance and hope mindset. It is clear to me as long as we are always making decisions rooted in scarcity and fear, whether it's in education or human rights, we're never going to find the solutions. We're never going to come together. We're always going to dig our heels in on the most critical issues. It's always going to be a war for resources. But when we root our decision-making on what education and futures young people deserve, and on gender rights and what women deserve in an abundance and hope mindset, I see that there are far more solutions than I think we have ever actually considered.
This is more a head answer of getting to an abundance and hope mindset at the end of the day. Our society has been designed and reinforced divisiveness through segregation and through the ways in which we are becoming increasingly isolated with society increasingly finding an echo chamber. More and more we are around people who are like us, who say what we want to hear and affirm our beliefs. There are less and less spaces where there are real bridges across differences, and difference in whatever way you define race and class ideology. As a society, we're going to have to figure out how to create schools that are actually diverse, create workspaces that are actually diverse, create conversations, news, social media that's actually diverse, because that's the only way to build empathy and the only way to build understanding by being confronted with some level of difference. We must build the diversity on a foundation of care and love for the other human beings sitting across from you. If you're a leader in an organization both for profit or non-profit, you must think about this. How are you building those bridges? We have to confront that, especially in education. Our nation's schools are nearly as segregated today as they were thirty years ago. We've got to confront that reality, or we're not going to build the bridges to address the biggest threats to our society, not just thriving, but surviving, such as the climate crisis, education crisis, public health crises that are now and in our future.
Robinson: Thank you so much, Melissa. As I said with Amanda, I sleep better at night, knowing that you guys are out there fighting the fight.
About the Author:
Kevin Robinson serves as co-lead and senior editor for the Race and Gender Equity Domain under the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative Social Impact Review Journal. He has substantial private sector and public sector legal, governance and strategic expertise and, among other roles, serves as a board member on several community and national non-profit organizations. Kevin is a 2022 Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.