Merit America

Merit America is a new nonprofit preparing vulnerable Americans for skilled careers at scale. Our founding impetus was to help fill the “gap” in the market for programs that are accessible and effective for low-wage workers, and also designed to scale widely. The pandemic has shone a harsh spotlight on this issue: over 40 million workers face catastrophic layoffs, and history indicates that those without education beyond high school will face the slowest recovery in the years to come. Americans who develop skills for in-demand careers will be best-positioned when the recovery begins. And Merit America's model is uniquely positioned to help meet this need, as it quickly prepares learners for in-demand roles, with accessible programs that can be completed even if participants are unable to leave their homes during shelter-in-place.

Our programs combine best-in-class tech-enabled learning with intrusive, professional coaching & peer support (delivered in-person or virtually), and help participants build the mindset and grit to progress over time. We’re not just getting Americans back to work in the short-term, but putting them on pathways to more resilient, upwardly-mobile careers.Everything we’ve built is designed to scale. Over the next five years we’re on a path to serve 25,000+ learners and drive $1 Billion in wage gains. We firmly believe in achieving sustainability through earned revenue, and Beacon’s financing and philanthropy will be crucial accelerants towards this goal.

Our primary earned revenue comes from graduates who repay us when they have a successful outcome (via our learner-centric “Success Sharing Program”) and employers who pay us when they upskill their workers or hire our graduates. While these revenue sources will allow us to recoup a large portion of our costs, they are significantly "lagging," and require that we invest in launching cohorts long before we earn revenue from our graduates' success (two to four years after graduation). As such, we are raising a working capital fund in addition to philanthropy, and have secured a $5M financing match opportunity.

We seek the catalytic resources to help scale our model in the short-term, while unlocking the long-term earned revenue that will drive our ongoing sustainability. Most importantly, this support will enable us to help tens of thousands of diverse, hard-working Americans transform their careers, and in so doing, their livelihoods, families and communities. As a current learner recently shared: “During this time of adversity, Merit America has made it a point of keeping their promise to help myself and countless others change their lives for the better.”