Furthering Education for LGBTQ Students
When Point Foundation was founded in 2001 by a group of friends and successful business people, their goal was to provide LGBTQ students with educational opportunities that the community has historically struggled to achieve.
Due to the high cost of college and graduate school, along with the compound inequities LGBTQ people face, LGBTQ people can often find the pursuit of higher education inaccessible or graduate from university or higher education with overwhelming debt. As a result, fewer LGBTQ people get the promising start they deserve, which means a lack of representation in leadership roles across all sectors.
As current Point Foundation scholar Reeves Gift says, “I didn’t think that college was an option for people like me.”
The support the Point Foundation has provided over 500 scholars is rooted in so much more than financial support. Executive Director and CEO, Jorge Valencia, explains, “It’s very important that we provide a community for them. We offer them a wealth of support through our alumni and mentors because for us, it is important that they see individuals in their community thriving and succeeding.”
Point Foundation provides leadership development training through its programs, conferences, and networking opportunities. And they also match scholars with a mentor or coach whose professional or personal experiences and successes align with the scholar’s goals. Mentors and coaches help the students network within their line of work, or talk them through difficult life moments, or help them plan around the stress in their education.
Mentors often become not only a resource to use as scholars as they navigate through educational challenges, but as they build personal connections and relationships, they become close friends and often extended family.
As a student that traveled from his Maryland hometown to attend school at the University of Southern California, Gift has spent family dinners and holidays with his mentor Rowena Arguelles.
Point knows that for each scholar mentorship and support looks different. Their scholars hail from campuses across the United States, and are studying in areas from pre-med to film production and more. The personalized support Point offers its scholars is instrumental to the Foundation’s more than 20 years of success and the more than 550 students they are supporting in the 2022-2023 academic year.
As they look towards their future, Point is focused on continuing to expand across the U.S. and internationally, as well as providing additional professional training and classes beyond traditional undergraduate and graduate school education.
Their online and social presence allows them not only to spread the word about their mission and impact, but also to connect their community of scholars, alumni, and donors, and continue to uplift the achievements of the LGBTQ community.
Learn more about Point Foundation by visiting https://pointfoundation.org/.
