📚 Fulphil: Bringing Entrepreneurship Education to Underserved Communities
This nonprofit is providing the curriculum and resources to turn high school students into social entrepreneurs
Fulphil believes that the people closest to the problem are also the ones closest to the solution, but they often don’t have the necessary resources or knowledge to enact change. This week’s startup focuses on nurturing the next generation of leaders.
🚀 Fast Facts
Company: Fulphil
Website: https://fulphil.org/
Founded: 2018
Stage: 501(c)3
Industry: Education
SDG: #4: Quality Education
Team: Master’s in Nonprofit Leadership | Tiffany Yau (CEO, Founder)
Traction: Winner of Greater Philadelphia Innovation Award, 2021 Philadelphia Foundation Fund For Children Strategic Investment Grant recipient, third place at Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition
🔥 What’s the Deal?
Social entrepreneurship is one of the most effective ways to make an impact in local communities, but one thing that has been lacking is a proper curriculum that teaches individuals to launch impact-oriented ventures in their communities. After graduating from Penn, Tiffany Yau saw an opportunity to create a platform that would provide that curriculum for high school students in local underserved communities. That platform would later evolve into Fulphil.
Although Tiffany’s interests did not always lie in business or social impact, the Penn alum discovered the power of social entrepreneurship through her sociology major and master’s in nonprofit leadership. Drawing from her educational background and professional experience, Tiffany developed comprehensive lesson plans that high schools can incorporate into their curriculums. The topics discussed in these lessons range from idea validation to investor pitching.
Since its inception in 2018, Fulphil has grown its headcount and expanded its offerings dramatically. The nonprofit now includes lesson plans covering financial literacy, mental wellness, and sustainability. Fulphil also hosts annual pitch competitions, which bring youth founders together to present their startup ideas and win funding.
❤️ Why We Love It
📚 A stand-alone educational program, not a supplement
What attracts us to Fulphil is the nonprofit’s ability to create a stand-alone educational program. This differs from platforms like Khan Academy which are often used as supplemental resources for what’s being taught in classrooms. Fulphil has created entire lesson plans with interactive activities that can be utilized by teachers within the classroom.
Basic entrepreneurship education, let alone social entrepreneurship education, is not usually taught well at many schools (if it is even taught at all). We believe that the comprehensive nature of Fulphil’s curriculum can help teachers rethink the way entrepreneurship is taught.
🙌 Unconditional support beyond graduation
While Fulphil’s curriculum does not last forever, the support that participants receive continues far beyond their initial participation. Namely, Fulphil advises young entrepreneurs on difficulties they experience when running their startups, and it assists participants with their college applications. We believe that Fulphil is well-positioned to address some of the systemic challenges that students and young entrepreneurs in these underserved communities face.
📈 The incredible, scalable value of a network
Fulphil has begun expanding its offerings, including pitch competitions and a 5-week intensive education program. From our perspective, though, Fulphil’s most valuable offering will be the entrepreneur network that it creates. We see that at famous accelerators such as Y-Combinator that successful founders who graduate from the program will come back to mentor new founders in the current batch. It becomes easy to envision that as Fulphil grows and takes on more students, it will be able to cultivate and grow a powerful network.
👋 Get Involved
Read about some of Fulphil’s success stories
Apply for available positions here
Donate to Fulphil
—Olivia Onyejekwe, Alicia Xiong