Bootcamp participant, Rashimi
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I M PA C T R E P O R T
Educate! Mentor, Ronnie
Photo credit: Raymond Kasese
A Letter From Educate!’s CEO In 2022, Educate! launched an ambitious plan to grow our annual reach 4x by 2025, dramatically increasing employment and economic opportunity for youth across East Africa. This plan will enable us to meaningfully impact 400,000 new youth. The stakes are high, but if we’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that our team rises to the occasion when faced with a challenge. Impact and growth demand innovation. We remain committed to thinking critically about how to strengthen our impact because we know that Educate!’s work goes far beyond building youth skills and agency. Empowering youth generates powerful ripple effects across communities, creating positive change on employment, economic development, gender equity, health, and climate change. Achieving change means equipping all young people with a springboard for their future, including girls like Peace, a secondary student in Uganda; and young women like Rose, a mother of three in Kenya — both featured in the coming pages. That’s why Educate! has adopted a dual approach: working through the school system as well as supporting youth outside of it. Guiding Educate! is our product-led approach, detailed in this report, which has shaped our thinking about how to best deliver and scale a
Team spirit: Educate!’s leaders gather in Kenya
transformational experience to youth both in and out of school. We are also strengthening existing partnerships and establishing new ones. We are deeply grateful for the catalytic $12M investment from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott towards our $44M 4-year strategic plan. This reaffirms our path forward and builds on the progress made possible through our longstanding supporters, who have enabled us to reach 250,000 youth to date. It is truly a privilege to continue this work. It would not be possible without Educate!’s incredible community of champions — and most importantly, the many young people paving the way to a better future for all of us. With gratitude,
Boris Bulayev CEO & Co-founder
Table of Contents 05 Cultural Tenets 08 How We Work 10 Educate!’s Vision for 2025 11 2022 in Numbers 12 Youth are the Solution 13 Development Done Differently 17 The Power of Single-subject Reform 21 Livelihood Bootcamps 25 Advancing the Global Dialogue 27 Supporters 28 Financials 29 Board of Directors 30 Brain Trust
Educate! Mentor, Mercy
Photo credit: Kibuuka Mukisa Oscar
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Educate!’s Cultural Tenets
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Students at Kennedy School in Uganda
Photo credit: Raymond Kasese
As we enter a new chapter, we’ve refreshed our cultural tenets, aligning our team and vision with our core values.
Youth First, Impact-obsessed We never forget that Educate! exists to impact youth.
Exceed Expectations We take pride in going above and beyond to achieve the best results.
Always Learning We are committed to seeking and applying new knowledge and ideas.
One Team,
Many Views We say what we think while treating each other well.
Students at Kennedy School in Uganda
Photo credit: Raymond Kasese
Startup Mindset We will always keep innovating to grow our impact. 6
Student business club at Janan Luwum School in Uganda
7 Photo credit: Raymond Kasese
Educate! prepares youth in Africa with the skills to succeed in today’s economy.
How We Work: Our core experience, delivered to youth in and out of school, combines skills training, mentorship, and practical experience starting a business.
Out-of-School
School Solutions
Education System Solutions
Youth Solutions
We facilitate practical, hands-on learning directly in secondary schools.
We partner with governments to integrate skills-based learning into national education systems.
We empower youth unable to access formal education through livelihood bootcamps.
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By 2035, Africa will contribute more people to the workforce each year
than the rest of the world combined.
The coming years are pivotal for young Africans — presenting both a challenge as well as an enormous opportunity to drive positive change.
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Source: World Economic Forum
Seizing this moment, we launched a newly revised strategic plan in 2022, which includes a bold vision to impact
400,000 new youth by 2025.
Strengthen School Solutions Integrate innovations forged during the pandemic to deepen impact on life outcomes
Scale Education System Solutions Expand to serve all secondary schools in Rwanda, while advocating for competencybased learning in Kenya and Tanzania
Build Out-of-School Youth Solutions Deliver bootcamps that equip youth outside of the education system with skills to build their livelihoods, focusing on rural girls and young women
Secondary students in Soroti, Uganda
Photo Credit: Cartier
Educate!’s Vision for 2025 10
2 0 2 2 in Numbers
Educate! measurably impacted 51,300 youth.
We reentered schools in Uganda and served
35,000
youth after an 83-week closure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In partnership with the government, we reached
12,000 secondary students across Rwanda.
In Kenya and Uganda, our bootcamps equipped
4,300
youth who are out of school with livelihood skills for the informal economy.
Student business club competition in Rwanda
Youth are the Solution As the largest youth skills provider in East Africa, Educate! delivers a core experience that enables youth to build skills that lead to improved life outcomes. This approach has been validated by several independent evaluations.
Educational Attainment Business Ownership
Civic Engagement
Improved Life Outcomes Climate Change Resilience
Employment & Income Gender Equity & Empowerment
Educate! youth leverage a diverse skill set to build a brighter future for themselves and their communities.
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Development Done Differently: Our Product-led Approach
In the for-profit world, customers wield power over companies. If a product isn’t serving customers, the company must change it. Why should development be any different? Educate!’s approach to model design embodies a “product-led mentality.” Our focus is on providing meaningful impact through our models over merely counting the number of young people who come through our doors. This means youth immediately start translating the practical skills they’ve learned to improve their lives in the real world. Product-led also means we solve a problem in stages, rather than allocating all of our time and resources to one approach. If a model achieves our desired impact, we double down on it. If it doesn’t, we pivot.
Innovation and Iteration
Scalable, Evidencebased Models
Centering Youth Voices
For us, iteration means we aren’t attached to a single solution and understand we likely can’t solve a problem on the first try. Instead, we invest deeply in continuous experimentation — even after we receive positive results — to ensure we are always improving.
Our goal is to offer repeatable and sustainable solutions capable of delivering proven impact. As a learning organization, we depend on data to improve design. From rapid assessments to randomized controlled trials (RCTs), we evaluate our model at every step of development.
To ensure we build solutions that uplift young people, it is critical that they drive decision-making. For example, when bootcamp participants told us that a lack of support is a barrier to participation, we recruited local leaders to facilitate family “meet and greet” sessions to boost buy-in.
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“Educate!'s strength is that we know how to identify and solve a problem, mobilize a team, and iterate and improve based on results." Ngibuini ‘Gibbs’ Mwaura, Product Strategist
Livelihood bootcamp in Uganda
Photo credit: Raymond Kasese
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The Educate! Experience: Our Impact Learning Lab Educate! has impacted 200,000 students through our direct-delivery model, the Educate! Experience, which we’ve run in schools in Uganda since 2009. This extensively-validated model has generated exciting results on both hard and soft skills, especially for girls. Today, it remains a critical learning lab for driving impact. As we’ve grown and extended our reach — integrating into national education systems and learning how to impact youth who can’t access formal secondary school — the Educate! Experience enables us to continuously
Students at Setlight Quality School in Uganda
15 Photo credit: Raymond Kasese
determine how to best deliver transformational skill-building experiences. For example, as schools reopened in Uganda in early 2022, our team tested various hypotheses aimed at figuring out how to move youth towards improved life outcomes, like income generation, faster. This included exploring the optimal time for students to participate and developing new initiatives to help youth apply practical skills at home. Moving forward, we’re eager to leverage the strength of this model to drive learning and innovation across all of our solutions.
Photo credit: Raymond Kasese
An Emphasis on Gender Equity We know that educated and empowered girls, like Peace, create more equitable societies. From shaping policies to providing learning materials that combat traditional gender norms, Educate! is committed to implementing a gender-transformative approach. Our diverse team of female and male role models continuously champion this cause.
While participating in the Educate! Experience, Peace was motivated to become a leader in her school and beyond. She has established a craft-making business and aspires to share what she has learned with women in her community to curb gender-based violence and promote gender equity. As Peace explains, even when jobs are scarce, if you have practical skills, you can earn an income and chart your own path.
“After the leadership training we received, I was prompted to run for Head Girl at school.” Peace, Ugandan Secondary Student
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The Power of Single-subject Reform: Sustainability at Scale
Imagine if a solution could reach not just hundreds of thousands of young people, but every student across a nation for generations. National education systems offer the most effective pathway to reach young people at scale. By integrating our core approach within existing systems, Educate! is working to institutionalize skills-based learning across East Africa. We partner with governments to transform education to equip young people with the practical skills they’ll need for life after school. To do this, Educate! provides technical advisory support on the design of an employment-focused school subject, such as a compulsory entrepreneurship course in Rwanda. While comprehensive curriculum reform can be lengthy and complex, focusing on a single subject allows us to streamline the process and reduce costs, all while creating meaningful change. 17
So far, Educate! has advised on curriculum reforms in Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. In 2022, we entered into partnership with the Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE), which is responsible for the nation’s curriculum design and development. With 1,900,000 youth currently in secondary school, Tanzania is an exciting new partner.
“Working with Educate! has been significant because students have developed an entrepreneurial mindset. Students can now think beyond their notebooks, which is a win for both the education system and Educate!.” Honorable Mr. Gaspard Twagirayezu (center right), Rwanda Minister of State Primary and Secondary Education
National student business club competition in Rwanda
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After participating in the Educate! Exchange, teachers were 19% more likely to deliver active, student-centered instruction.
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For teacher Euphrosine Muyizere, Rwanda’s new continuous assessment platform represents an exciting shift in practice.
CAMIS: An Assessment Software that Meets the Mark Achieving sustained change takes time, and that’s why Educate! doesn’t stop at shaping policy within secondary schools. To support the national implementation of curriculum reforms and aid teachers in adopting new practices, we developed a two-year training and in-school support model called the Educate! Exchange. We also embed structures to ensure changes in policy are sustained. In Rwanda, one such innovation is a software called CAMIS (Comprehensive Assessment Management Information System). Developed by the National Examination and School Inspection Authority (NESA) with technical advice from Educate!, CAMIS provides a new assessment method to support skills-based learning.
Rather than focusing instruction primarily on preparing for high-stakes exams, CAMIS enables teachers to continuously monitor student development over time, leveraging data to better understand and respond to learners’ needs. In line with national policy, CAMIS allows teachers to access higher-order thinking questions, create engaging projects, and easily upload student data to a central platform using basic phone technology. At the national level, CAMIS will also allow education officials to identify subject-specific learning challenges and introduce measures to enhance teaching, district by district. Today, CAMIS is used by over 97,000 of Rwanda’s secondary school teachers.
“A reform process is only as good as the support measures underpinning it. Recognizing concerns by teachers in the co-design process, we developed CAMIS as a custom assessment tool and addressed how to implement continuous assessment through in-service training. The use of CAMIS illustrates a positive shift towards ongoing evaluation practices. Early signs show that with CAMIS, teachers understand students’ challenges better and adapt their methods, fostering lasting behavior change at the school, district, and national level.” Kamanda Kamiri, Regional Director of Partnerships
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Livelihood Bootcamps: Bridging the Gap for Out-of-School Youth Across some African regions, only 1 in 20 rural girls are on track to complete secondary school.
For the millions of youth unable to access formal education in East Africa, few alternative paths exist to support their transition into today’s labor market. Some may pursue technical or vocational training, but this can be prohibitively expensive, time intensive, and often requires secondary completion. As a result, many out-of-school youth remain trapped in under- and unemployment. Recognizing this gap, Educate! has developed a new solution to equip these young people with the tools to build their livelihoods, which we are now beginning to scale. To do this well, we’ve engaged in research and development, running multiple pilots and listening to youth themselves to learn everything we can about the challenges they face. 21
Based on our learnings, 10+ years of experience, and a strong foundation of evidence, we’ve built a multi-week skills bootcamp hyper-tailored to the needs of some of the hardest-to-reach youth. For example, within the bootcamp, trainers translate content into local languages, adapt lessons to accommodate lower literacy and numeracy levels, and provide services such as childcare for young mothers. Our bootcamps primarily cater to rural girls but also include boys, building a strong community of gender champions. At the core of this work is our fundamental belief that every young person deserves access to post-primary education. Source: The Education Commission
Bootcamp participant in Kenya
Photo Credit: George Mimano
Supporting Youth to Build Agency and Climate Resilience To address the challenge of the climate crisis, Educate! is exploring the link between girls’ education and climate action.
In Kenya, 70% of rural employment is based in the agricultural sector, and women account for 75% of agricultural labor. Within our bootcamps for out-ofschool youth, we are exploring green and sustainable businesses which support agricultural value chains. We are currently testing the viability of business models that young people can successfully launch and run, such as growing cashews and peanuts; producing honey, organic fertilizers and pesticides; selling spices; and more. Source: UN Women
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Unlocking Potential through a Growth Mindset “Lessons that cultivate a growth mindset are transformational. The youth we work with have experienced challenges at a very early age. This, coupled with limited access to education, impacts their self-esteem. Through our bootcamps, young people begin to envision themselves as entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs face setbacks. What matters is that you keep going and learn as you move forward. I’ve witnessed participants shift their view of what’s possible for their lives and I am really proud of all they’re achieving.” Ivy Wanjeri Senior Experiments Manager
So far, we have strong validation for the impact of our bootcamp model. In Kenya, three months after participation, we saw the following results:
↑ 102%
Increase in Average Income
↑ 70%
Increase in Youth who are Saving
↑ 139%
Increase in Business Ownership This data was collected through a pre-post evaluation. The increase in average total income figure includes data from all youth in the sample, regardless of earning status.
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Rose’s Path to Economic Empowerment “I learned through Educate! that I can stand on my own as a woman and I can make it.” Kenyan single mother of three, Rose, has overcome tough times to run a thriving second-hand clothes stall. She lost her mother at a young age and her father remarried twice, leading to a challenging period in the household. She abandoned school and married at 17, but the relationship wasn’t easy. Eventually, her husband left when she was six months into her third pregnancy. Determined to change her life and start a business, Rose joined Educate! and attended a bootcamp with her nine-monthold baby. Despite the hardships of the pandemic, when many families in her area went hungry, lessons on budgeting enabled Rose to feed her children and diligently save money for extra expenses. Leaning into the power of communication, Rose greets everyone who passes her store. Her sociable approach has left an impression on her community and increased her sales. Photo Credit: George Mimano
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Global Dialogue
Advancing the 25
Educate! Experience participant, Monica
Photo Credit: Raymond Kasese
Beverly Nicole Adhiambo, an Educate! Program Officer and community activist, joined a fireside chat hosted by our partners at Imaginable Futures, which focused on centering youth voices to create a sustainable future for Africa.
Boris Bulayev, CEO, participated in a panel hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations Young Professionals Briefing Series to discuss the role of the private sector in promoting social responsibility.
The UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) convened a first-of-its-kind Feminist Coalition for Gender Transformative Education at the Transforming Education Summit. Educate! was one of 22 organizations selected to join.
Global Director of Research, Measurement, & Evaluation, Meghan Mahoney, participated in a webinar hosted by J-PAL Africa and the Population Council, which focused on innovative solutions for advancing gender equity.
Educate! was selected amongst 2,462 entries from 32 countries to receive the ‘Rethinking Education for Work’ award at the 2022 Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers in Kenya.
Regional Director of Partnerships, Kamanda Kamiri, spoke at the inaugural Schools2030 Global Forum in Tanzania and engaged in a conversation about the effective utilization of educational data and research.
In a webinar hosted by the World Bank, Boris Bulayev, CEO, presented our evidencebased approach to building socioemotional skills.
As one of the World Bank’s S4YE Impact Portfolio partners, we shared our insights on leveraging technology to drive impact in a new brief: Using Digital Tools for Monitoring and Evaluation of Youth Employment Programs.
Educate! was featured on the VoxDev Development Economics podcast. Paul Gertler, Principal Investigator of Skills for Effective Entrepreneurship Development (SEED) — a 3-week skills bootcamp — shared the impact of an intensive skills experience.
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Supporters We are deeply grateful for the generosity of our partners and champions, including many not listed here. Every dollar of support has enabled Educate! to measurably impact over 250,000 youth to date. $300,000+
$100,000 - $299,999
Anonymous
Rippleworks
Atlassian Foundation International
#StartSmall
Echidna Giving
UBS Optimus Foundation
Imaginable Futures
Wellspring Philanthropic Fund
MacKenzie Scott Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation
Amit J. and Vicky L. Patel Foundation Anonymous Bavaria Industries Group AG Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning (CEDIL) funded by UK aid
Anonymous
Manitou Foundation
Big Win Philanthropy
Bohemian Foundation
Radhika Malpani
Ron and Dianne Hoge
ECOM Foundation
Rockefeller Philanthrophy Advisors
Scott and Wendy Falk
Segal Family Foundation
Xiao Li
John F. and Mary A. Geisse Foundation Kagan Family
Stichting Equilibrio Umsizi Fund
$2,000 - $4,999 Alpine Social Ventures Foundation Amy Kates Brian and Claire Makare Kiran D’Souza
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Hampshire Foundation Imago Dei Fund Peery Foundation Pilot House Philanthropy Stichting Dioraphte Waterloo Foundation
$5,000 - $9,999
$10,000 - $99,999
Efrusy Family Foundation
CG Charitable
Mission Meats Tab for a Cause The Packard Foundation Tyler Stephens
Vinay D’Souza
“I needn’t ask those I care about what to say to them, or what to do for them. I can share what I have with them to stand behind them as they speak and act for themselves.” Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in her Medium blog post announcing 2022 awardees
Financials The figures below represent unaudited financials for 2022. Full audited financial statements will be shared on our website when available.
Statement of Activities
69%
30%
1%
CHANGE IN NET ASSETS
Restricted education reform fund
$12,000,000 Grant & cash contributions
$5,320,930
Statement of Financial Position
Revenue $17,499,497
Interest & other income
Net assets at beginning of year Net assets at end of year Change in net assets
ASSETS
$178,567
Current assets Other assets Total assets 86%
7%
7%
$11,998,170 $22,327,160 $10,328,990
$10,617,086 $12,009,203 $22,626,289
Program services
$6,171,773 Fundraising
$532,569
Expenses $7,170,507
General & administrative
$466,165
LIABILITIES AND NET ASSETS Total liabilities Net assets Total liabilities & net assets
$299,130 $22,327,160 $22,626,290
NET INCOME: $10,328,990
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Board of Directors
Amy Kates
Boris Bulayev
Dzingai Mutumbuka
Eric Glustrom, Chair
Senior Managing Director at Kates Kesler (part of Accenture); i4cp Thought Leader Consortium member; Organizational Design Instructor at DTU Executive School of Business and Cornell University
CEO and Co-Founder, Educate!
Former Minister of Education, Zimbabwe; Former Senior World Bank Official; Former Chairman, ADEA
Co-Founder, Educate!; Founder & CEO, Watson Institute
Jeff Aludo
Nikita Miller
Radhika Malpani
Founder and Lead Strategist, The Aludo Group; Former Regional Managing Director, Africa Practice
SVP Head of Product, The Knot Worldwide; Former VP of Product, Dooly; Former Group Product Manager, Trello (Atlassian); Former Principal Product Manager, Knewton
Advisory Board Member, Quilt.AI; Fellow, Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute; Former Engineering Partner, Google
“Improving youth outcomes is the success criteria for everything the Educate! team creates. They’re able to do that by learning from the product development processes in other industries.” 29
Nikita Miller, Educate! Board Member
Brain Trust The Educate! Brain Trust is an advisory group that supports the collaborative innovation and development of our solutions for youth who are out of school. Dedo Baranshamaje Director of Strategy, Segal Family Foundation
Patrick Obonyo Programme Manager, IKEA Foundation
Kim Kerr Education & International Development Consultant; Former Director of Regional Programs, Mastercard Foundation
Paul Atherton Founder, Fab Inc.; Former Education Economist, DFID
Nadi Albino Deputy Director of Partnerships and Resources Mobilization, Generation Unlimited Nancy Taggart Vice President, Making Cents International; Former Senior Advisor, USAID Nick Burnett, Chair Senior Fellow, Results for Development
Shubha Jayaram Deputy Director of Strategy, Planning and Management, Gates Foundation
Teresa Mbagaya Principal, Imaginable Futures
Xiaoyan Liang Lead Education Specialist, World Bank Bootcamp participant, Nemick
Photo credit: George Mimano
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Students at Janan Luwum School in Uganda
Photo credit: Raymond Kasese