Episode 14: Building a Brighter Future with Shirley Acevedo Buontempo
Join your host Betsy Bush as she speaks with Shirley Acevedo Buontempo, the founder and CEO of Latino U College Access. They discuss how Shirley founded LUCA, how she transitioned from a career in business and marketing into the non-profit space, and the importance of building your network!
Mentioned:
Media Coverage:
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo: AARP Purpose Prize Winner
“From College Access to College Success at Latino U”
Transcript:
Betsy Bush (00:47):
My guest Shirley Acevedo blonde tempo has had an extraordinary 10 years. She left a career in marketing to pursue her passion of helping first-generation Latino kids and their families apply and get into college. Shirley is the founder and CEO of Latino U college access in Westchester county, New York and her organization has had a remarkable trajectory. She has so much wisdom to share about following your dreams into the nonprofit world. Shirley, thank you so much for being with me on the latest version. Welcome, welcome.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (01:27):
Oh, Betsy. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon and to see you virtually once again, once
Betsy Bush (01:35):
Again, well, let's just be upfront with the fact that we've known each other for a long time. Yes. You were a student in my fundraising class when I taught at Pace University's master's of public administration course. And you got an MPA degree from pace along with, I think, an undergraduate degree also from Pace, but you've done something really extraordinary because not many people who set out to started a nonprofit managed to get to the point that you have. And you've done very well in just 10 years. And I want to just kind of talk about how you got there, because I think this is a dream that many people in mid-career or midlife, or even later have, can you just give us a little idea of what your earlier career was like before you got into the nonprofit?
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (02:35):
Absolutely. yes. When I had the privilege of meeting you and participate in your class, I was an adult learner. I had gone back to pursue my masters after 25 years after I received my undergrad. And so I had lived a whole other professional career and the first half of my professional life was in business and marketing to backtrack a thank you for your kind words regarding the work that we do here at Latino U college access. And as founder of Luca, I was dedicated and committed to creating an organization that addressed educational inequities and provided opportunity to first gen low-income Latino youth. And why is that? Because I, myself am first gen Latina. I was born in Puerto Rico. English is my second language and I believe in the transformative power of education to change lives for generations. When I went to college, I went from Puerto Rico to the Bronx to Pace Uuniversity undergrad in Pleasantville, which was the country forus city folks. I pursued a business degree back in the eighties and marketing. And the first half of my life's career was in Hispanic marketing and advertising, working on culturally targeted, bilingual marketing and advertising campaigns. I loved that career. It was great fun to combine both my cultural, as well as my academic preparation into a business, I was a product manager and account supervisor and worked for divisions of Grey and Saatchi as well as packaged foods, companies, Best Foods, Mazola,Corn Oil, business, loved that industry. And I felt that when I started a family, it became more challenging as many women professional women face. There comes a time if your family obligations conflict greatly with what you are trying to achieve professionally, you have to sometimes make a choice. And at that time I made a decision to step back from a corporate world and spend more time at home.
Betsy Bush (04:44):
Yeah. And that's very much a contemporary condition of a lot of women now in the COVID, post COVID world. Yeah.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (04:52):
Yeah. One of the things during this pandemic, it's my heart went out to women who were raising young children, trying to work from home, navigating the needs of their children's academic virtual classes, as well as their own professional and business needs. It is challenging under normal circumstances. I'm sure it was quite challenging in this period.
Betsy Bush (05:15):
So starting a nonprofit, I think a lot of, oh, I'm just going to start a nonprofit it's harder. And I think a lot of people who have that dream really think about what did you do, or how did you prepare yourself to make that leap and how, who, who helped you along the way? And what were those, what was that transition like for you? I
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (05:40):
Believe me that the journey that I've taken to to this moment in time has been one that has I've been led to throughout my entire life. Everything from my personal background to my early career, to then choosing to work in the nonprofit industry while I was raising my family and then pursuing my master's in public administration as an adult learner led to a critical moment in time where I became aware of a need that existed in our community to provide resources and information to Hispanic families in our community, in their language, in Spanish, and to help first gen students who had so much potential maneuver the college admissions process. And it was that experience and recognition that I came to while I was pursuing my MPA, that evolved slowly over time. And so the germ of an idea that why can't I do something about this? And I had decided that I did not want to return to business world or the corporate world. And that I felt that my life's calling my vocation was in nonprofit world, in the nonprofit world providing services for the community. But my purpose, as I have found was to launch this organization and I launched in November of 2012 with an idea to create and deliver Spanish language information information sessions on the topics of applying and paying for college and started with two students that we were mentoring a volunteer. And I, and seeing the impact and the response to the work that we did in that first year, really motivated me to continue to build and grow this organization to where it is right now.
Betsy Bush (07:32):
You really, picked up on something that was in the air around 20 12, 20 11, 20 12, which was this, this realization that there were all these talented kids going through the public schools, graduating with, you know, top grades, but that the family experience that so many other children have of parents who had themselves gone to college, knew how to go to college, how to apply, doing the college trips, doing the, the financial aid form that for this first generation, the, this idea of the first-generation kids who did not have that family experience to fall back on, and even parents who were not sure that there was financial aid help scholarships and all of that, that, that you had people falling through the cracks young people who really should be going to college. So you really picked up on that. And that really made an impression on me. And I think a lot of other who's clearly that your, did you find yourself falling back or using your marketing experience in the beginning in how you would, how you would fundraise or get the idea up and running?
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (08:48):
Yes, absolutely. I was doing research during my MPA on, on educational inequity amongst Latino students. When we refer to first-generation, we've heard to first-generation going to college and their families. Yes. The majority of our students are the children of immigrants, but they are also the first in their families that will go to college. And we realized that without parents to guide and parents who had that experience, the complexity of the college admissions process and the complexity of the financial aid process was the biggest detriment to students fulfilling their potential.
Betsy Bush (09:24):
It can be so intimidating, you know, even for, for parents who have gone to college to face this the pressure and the ins and outs and all of that.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (09:36):
And, and coincidentally, at the time that I was thinking about launching this organization, I was helping my own daughter through the college admissions process. And all I kept thinking was if this is a challenge for me, who is a college grad, a professional, my husband as well, first gen college grad professional, how challenging is this for the families that I was working with and the nonprofit organizations that I served. And so recognizing that the unfairness of this process and the challenges that that students were facing, I began the process of building and writing a business plan for the formation of Luca. And I applied my business skills. You know, you write a business plan by defining the problem, the need, the research, the solution in the MPA program, we were required to do a capstone. My capstone theme was the factors that lead to success among first-generation Latino students. And so my capstone was the first primary research. So I spent a year and a half doing research and preparation, wrote the business plan, put together a little presentation that I then brought to local school districts. And we garnered our first partnership with Ossining school district. And then our second with white Plains and our third would sleepy hollows. So we're in three school districts that we've defined as high Hispanic school districts. Over 50% Latino students are enrolled in those schools and all of this from a lens of a social enterprise, applying a business strategy business skills to both the building of the plan for the organization, in addition to the marketing of the organization. And so the logo that I designed, but I also worked with some of my peers from the advertising industry and creating a video where they provided pro bono support, consulted with some mentors and colleagues from the marketing and business world as well in the building of an organization. And it started as a one person team from my home and slowly grew. We also tapped into the talent of over 25 interns that have supported Luca. Most of them from my Alma mater pace university, I say the interns were the lifeblood that helped to build Luca and recruited incredible board members who were passionate about this mission, who were passionate about the work that we were doing and who recognized the need for educational equity.
Betsy Bush (12:08):
When I look at your social media posts, it's clear that you've been able to bring others into this dream that you have and communicate to them the importance of your mission and getting these kids to college and helping the families. How does that, how does that work? I mean, to me, it's communicating to people who also may not necessarily show your background, share your background, but who understand the importance of getting all talented people into college so they can enrich our country and our communities and things like that.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (12:49):
Absolutely. I think that everyone understands, particularly those of us who have children, everyone understands the value and the dream of giving educational opportunity to children and recognizing that an education is the surest way to break the cycle of poverty, the surest way to create upward mobility, to create a healthier community. You make healthier decisions when you have a college education to be civically involved and informed to make decisions around your community, that impact policy and impact the word of the life around you. And so while we have any supporters, they don't necessarily all share identity as Hispanic, but they all share a belief in education and a believe in providing equal opportunity to those that don't have the resources to access them. And in the potential of these, of the amazing children and scholars in our program, we have students that have worked very, very hard throughout their elementary and high school years motivated by the sacrifice and the hard work that they've seen their parents give and who their greatest goal is to make their parents proud, to be able to have career opportunities where they can then serve as role models for their, for their siblings, where they can then uplift their own families. And when we look at our, our workforce, you know, 65%, if not more of new jobs will require some form of higher education. So for the benefit of our, our us economy and business and work, we need an educated workforce. And the fastest growing demographic is the young Hispanic demographic. And so as, as the Latino community grows and it shows its incredible potential it behooves us not to put them in places where they can succeed.
Betsy Bush (14:49):
You must be at the point where have sent kids to college who have now graduated. Have you gotten to the point where you've, where you've seen college grads now who are Latino U college access scholars. Yeah. Did you do any volunteer work or any side gigs or research into the area of tutoring or helping kids to help you narrow your focus? I mean, if you have this very broad idea of helping kids get into college, did you do anything like volunteering or working at another organization just to see what that would be like kind of test the waters to get a sense of how, how you might clarify what you wanted to do.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (15:41):
I had been working for about 10 years in, in nonprofit organizations locally. And the last five before I launched Luca were in an organization where I was hosting family workshops. And it was actually those nights working with Latino families in hosting evening workshops on topics that were of interest to them that began to move me and inspire me to recognize how much parents cared about their children's education, how much parents desired for their children to go to college, how, how aspirational they were. And while I was simultaneously doing that and helping my own daughter through the process, I felt a personal sense of, of concern that the parents in the programs that I was working in would not be able to do the same things that I was doing and paying for, for my child, whether it was sat, test prep or hiring someone to help my daughter with her college essays. And it was that personal experience that made me realize that the system and the process was unfairly balanced for those with resources and having worked in nonprofit. I knew that I could best benefit the community by providing these services for them. I remember talking to a group of students about test prep in this nonprofit. And there were six students and they were all high school seniors. And we asked them, how many of you want to go to college? And they all raise their hands. How many of you have taken test prep? And none of them raised their hands. And when I asked, why were they not participating in the low cost test prep, which was, I think about $350 in their school. One young lady said that's too expensive. That's grocery money. Now think about that, that thousands and thousands of dollars that other families in the same community can spend. So yes. Sure. So when you have to choose between groceries and helping your child receive preparation for college admission fence, there's an inequity there. Absolutely. And so we provide free test prep when they were doing it. Now they're not doing now, sat is optional. Test prep is optional, but we provide all of the resources students need for free. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, our funders, our sponsors, we give our scholars assistance through every step of the process. And then we also stay with them when they go off to college to make sure that they have support to succeed and graduate because getting in is half the battle when you're first gen staying in and graduating is another major hurdle. Yeah.
Betsy Bush (18:44):
And regular college students, you know, with family support have trouble. You know, those, those first few years, I can just imagine what it must be like for a first gen kid who, who maybe feels at sea on a college campus and needs help and doesn't know where to turn perhaps. So you, you stick with those kids through college and help them navigate that?
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (19:11):
Well. Yes. Ours is a six-year program, helping students enroll, transition, stay in college and ultimately assisting them in preparation for internships so that they can also have a network of contacts that can help build their resumes and gain some experience prior to graduating college. .
Betsy Bush (19:33):
That sounds great. Are you aware of any other similar organizations around the country or is there a, a resource I'm thinking of my listener who may not be in Westchester, but is know elsewhere in the country?
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (19:49):
We are a member of an organization association called the national college attainment networks and can, and there are hundreds of college access organizations around the country that work with first gen students of all ethnic backgrounds, whether it's a rural farming community, whether it's a black community, Asian, anyone who's first gen our organization is very geared towards a cultural. Identity and bilingualism purposely. So because that's the need that exists in our community, but there are hundreds of organizations that serve any and all first gen students outside in the community where we live in, in Westchester county, there is no other college access organization except for one in a, in a nearby city, but that they support that particular city. We are, as far as Latino focused bilingual programming, maybe only a handful that I've heard of. And mostly in the Southwest and west coast.
Betsy Bush (20:56):
I'm so glad I asked you that question because I had no idea there was such can.Org and can.org. I will make sure that that information gets up on our show page of, for anyone who wants to go to the latest version podcast.com that will be on Shirley's episode, page. I'm really glad I asked. So you now have several classes of graduating students by this time. Is that right?
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (21:26):
Yeah, it is. So when we started in 2012, we had two graduates. Then by 2014, we kept doubling the classes. So we had 10, 20, 25 to date. We've had 222 scholars go through our program by next year's class will be close to 300 students in our program. We're really proud of them. I'd say about 46 students have graduated and we stay in touch with most of them. They are at various companies like IBM MasterCard. One of our wonderful students is sends me a message. She's graduating. She graduated from American university served as a peace Corps volunteer. And now is a program analyst at the us department of agriculture.
Betsy Bush (22:18):
Wow. That's fantastic. You must feel like you're the mom to all of these, all of these kids, because they would not be doing what they're doing now, if it weren't for the organization that you started
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (22:33):
Is a blessing. I feel like I have 200 children and I am so proud of each and every one of them, I love to follow them on LinkedIn and cheer them on as they announced their employments or promotions and encourage them to keep thriving. We also invite them to come back and speak to the younger students and inspire and mentor them. We're planning to have a private screening of the film in the Heights, which is about a first gen college students. And I've invited this young lady who graduated from American and another student. Who's a sophomore at Stanford and in our program to come and speak to the scholars at this private screening that we're hosting so they can share their journeys and their stories with them.
Betsy Bush (23:19):
This is Incredible . What an inspiring story, Shirley, but this spring, you had an interesting announcement to the community that you've been serving as founder and CEO of Latino U college access. Do you want to tell us what it was?
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (23:38):
Oh yes, absolutely. I announced in the spring that this, I would be stepping down as CEO and transitioning off this role into a new role here at Luca and introducing our new executive director Cosette Gutierrez at is this is an internal succession plan with a deputy director that I hired only about almost only two years ago and who has been an incredible partner to me through this pandemic and to the organization has been an incredible asset and has much to contribute to Luca. I wanted to step away at this time from the day-to-day running as an executive director of Luca, because I felt that we were at a critical point in our life for scaling and growth. And I wanted to spend my time serving as an ambassador and as a fundraiser and as an advocate for educational equity, allowing the executive director, inviting the executive director to to manage the organization's growth, manage the organization's programs, scaling scaling the programs and, and work in tandem with the board to really get us to this next stage.
Betsy Bush (24:59):
I have to say I'm full of admiration for your insight into your need to do that for maybe, you know, your own sake. I'm sure it's been a crazy 10 years.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (25:13):
It's 10. It feels like 20 different, you know, 16 hour days.
Betsy Bush (25:21):
Sure. And I'm sure you're ready to step back from that, but, but also there are a lot of organizations that have founders who can't step away, who, you know, where it's healthy for an organization to have a succession plan and to have it's it's the organization that that's important. It's not the, the person who founded it. It needs to grow on its own and it needs to be self-sufficient and it needs to be its own thing. And sometimes it's not great for the organization to be too closely associated or identified with a particular person.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (26:00):
No, I agree. I mean, I think that I am, I'm proud of having had this opportunity to find my life's purpose in this work and to do something that is so inspiring. And I'm so passionate about that I could literally work at it 24 7, but I am cognizant of the personal and family sacrifice that has been made over the last 10 years. And I am also cognizant of what the organization needs in order to successfully grow and scale. And I'm not, I don't want to step away from it. There's nothing, there's no other mission and there's no other organization that I want to give my time, talent and treasure to, but I am perfectly calm, comfortable having leadership, having new leadership, having our board, having our team take the Baton and run with it because particularly because I feel so confident in the skills and in the commitment and passion that our new executive director will have and the commitment that our board has for the organization. I will tell you, you know, as the founder, if I didn't have this confidence, I wouldn't step away, but I do feel so confident from what I've seen, that it is. It is easy for me. And I'm actually excited about taking on a new role. I'm, I'm excited about redefining myself within Luca within this mission, but doing something new, I'm a continuous learner. I love to learn and do new things. And it's time I've spent the last 10 years building this from the ground up to your point. Anyone that wants to start a nonprofit, it is not easy if you want to do it right, and you need to do it diligently. It is a lot of hard work and dedication, but the rewards from the fulfillment of this mission and the inspiration of those that you serve are equal to none.
Betsy Bush (27:57):
So as I always say on the latest version, we are never our final versions. And it looks like you're onto your next version of whatever, you know, you are going to be doing next, obviously with with Luca, but that will also be a role that you will start to define and continue to, to define.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (28:19):
Yeah, there's a little bit of the unknown, right? What is this new role look like? As I seek to establish thought leadership in the subject and in the area of educational equity, as I seek to serve as an ambassador for Luca and to support our new executive director and reaching the goals of tripling, the number of students that we serve that's where I'm going to get a lot of joy sitting back and watching with pride and excitement where this organization is going and where our scholars are going.
Betsy Bush (28:48):
Shirley, I always end my podcasts with a question. Do you have three pieces of advice for anyone listening today? Who's like, I have a passion that I want to follow and I want to start a nonprofit. You've had a lot of good advice so far. Is there, do you have anything do it? Yeah.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (29:07):
I think most importantly is follow your passion as it will lead you to your life's purpose. And if you follow that, I truly believe that there's a, there's a quote by Paolo Coelho a Brazilian author that says, "if you want something bad enough, the universe conspires to make it happen." And I think for me, and for Luca, it definitely was this putting out a dream and a wish for something that I wanted to achieve. But then secondly, do your homework prepare, prepare, speak to a lot of individuals and ask for advice. I've always been very strategic and thoughtful about the next step and had what I called controlled growth and controlled piloting of our programs. So prepare and research and collaborate. It is in, it takes a village and it's incredible how much you can accomplish if you share your vision with others and invite them to join you. And I think that's what has truly led to the success of Luca. It's been, it's been a collaborative community success. We've all joined together. Our volunteers, our staff, our board members, our community and school partners and our corporate partners.
Betsy Bush (30:27):
I am again, full of admiration and nothing could have pleased me more than to see one of my students from ages ago, succeed at the level that you have, it's really gratifying. And it's just a wonderful thing to see. And Shirley, I wish you all the best as you redefine this role of wherever it is you're going, and we wish Latino U college access all the best. And I thank you so much for joining me today on the latest version.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo (31:01):
Thank you very much. And I congratulate you on your efforts with the latest version and your new version as well. You're an inspiration to me and I'm thank you for giving us, giving me an opportunity to share the story and the mission of Latino U college access. I'm excited to see what the future holds as well. And, and I, I do believe that that it, It is a bright future for all of us, so. Okay. Thank you.
Betsy Bush (31:28):
Thanks for listening!