Braven

Program Description:

Braven is a career-acceleration program for current college learners that includes a semester-long 3-credit course and post-course experience that helps students develop crucial durable skills, build their professional networks, boost their confidence, and gain career-accelerating opportunities. During the course, learners, called “Fellows,” identify their personal values and skills, and explore how those connect to the labor market; create a resume, LinkedIn profile, and participate in at least two mock interviews with professionals from the workforce; and participate in a team-based competition to solve a real-world business challenge for an employer partner. 

These activities build and make visible “durable skills”–communication, problem-solving, working in teams, organization, leadership, technology, and career navigation–that employers consistently cite as hard to assess through traditional hiring practices. Braven Fellows are also partnered with volunteer professionals, called “Leadership Coaches,” who help Fellows build their networks and understand how their academic and lived experiences connect to the world of work, bridging a gap that education and workforce leaders identify as a barrier to connecting college talent to jobs.

Students who complete the course receive more opportunities to develop leadership and career-readiness skills, engage in a professional network, and stay on track to secure strong internships or jobs or enter graduate school through 1:1 mentoring by professionals in their field, Braven networking events, career panels, and job skills sessions, joining a Braven Career Community (an industry-specific pathway that connects them to relevant resources, tools, people, learning experiences, and opportunities), and accessing internship and employment opportunities facilitated by Braven. 

The entire Braven experience includes ongoing employer-engagement events, such as industry spotlight panels, networking sessions, and skill-building opportunities, where learners interact with professionals in their industries of interest. The Braven staff designs and facilitates these experiences to provide safe spaces to practice networking and to strengthen skills, while also creating the conditions for learners to build meaningful social capital with professionals. By convening a broad network of employer partners across industries and regions rather than relying on single-employer pipelines, Braven functions as the kind of cross-sector intermediary that education and workforce researchers point to as necessary for these partnerships to scale sustainably in an ever-shifting labor market. Through these events, employers also have access to prospective employees from a wider variety of backgrounds to grow their talent pipelines.

Braven also offers BravenX, the same curriculum as its university-based model that is available to learners coming through college access and scholarship organizations. While BravenX does not offer college credits, learners instead receive a stipend.

Impact:

Braven’s outcomes reflect their core thesis: students need durable skills, social capital, career-related experiences, and confidence to launch strongly into the labor market. Braven courses are offered at 13 campuses across the country, and include a combination of in-person and synchronous online weekly sessions. Over 17,400 learners have participated in Braven courses, and over 2,200 Fellows have participated in BravenX. According to Braven: 

• Fellows are 12-22 percent more likely to have employment in a degree-suitable full-time job within six months of graduating, 
• earn an average of $14,900 more per year than their counterparts; and
• Braven Fellows were also 28 percentage points more likely to have an internship or similar experience during college compared to their peers nationally. 

Early external studies of the Braven Experience show promising results:

• A team of researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) found that Braven Fellows, compared to a control group, exhibited statistically significant improvements in social and academic fit, job search and career self-efficacy, and perseverance. 
• Research from Harvard GSE and the Search Institute indicates that Braven Fellows show growth in, or high levels of, social capital, and in non-cognitive areas such as growth mindset, job search and career self-efficacy, social and academic fit, and network strength. Developing social capital matters as it is associated with positive outcomes such as greater educational attainment, full-time employment, and career advancement opportunities. 

Braven is expanding this evidence base through two research partnerships with the American Institute for Research (AIR) and Opportunity Insights to examine Braven’s impact on our North Star and long-term outcomes, respectively. 

Population Served:

Learners at partner colleges and BravenX Fellows from partner nonprofits, with a particular relevance for first-generation college students and students from low-income backgrounds.

Learn more here.

Page last updated in August 2026