The Lumina Foundation and Higher Education

Posted on 06. Apr, 2009 in Social Innovation

I recently had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Jamie Merisotis, president of the Lumina Foundation for Education.

Jamie is a shining example of keeping the ‘why’ front and center. The Lumina Foundation, while large in assets (they give away approximately $54 million a year) is narrow in focus, working exclusively on helping students to enroll in post-secondary education − and to succeed once they get there.

He recently came to Boston to speak at Root Cause’s Social Innovation Forum social issue speaker series. His speech, while dynamic in many ways, had two exceptionally compelling, simple statements:

Right now, and for the past four decades, U.S. postsecondary degree attainment has hovered around 39 percent.

By the year 2025, we want 60 percent of the American population to hold high-quality, two- or four-year college degrees.

Andrew Wolk, Root Cause Founder and CEO

Andrew Wolk is the founder and CEO of Root Cause, a nonprofit research and consulting firm in Cambridge, MA that partners with nonprofits, philanthropy, government, and business to advance solutions to today’s toughest social issues. Please visit Root Cause's website at rootcause.org.

Despite the billions of dollars and millions of nonprofit and government programs devoted to addressing social issues here in the United States and abroad, proven innovations often do not spread and endure. Even the most successful programs are only reaching a fraction of the populations in need.

In an era of limited resources that requires leaders in all sectors to do more with less, the future of society’s health and ability to advance depends on tackling today’s challenges in education, health, job creation, and environmental sustainability.

No one organization or sector has the resources to tackle today’s difficult social issues alone. Instead, leaders in nonprofits, philanthropy, government, and business must work together to identify effective solutions. They must also provide access to resources and distribution systems that will lead to widespread impact.

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About Andrew

Andrew Wolk is Founder and CEO of Root Cause, a nonprofit organization that advances enduring solutions to social and economic problems by supporting social innovators and educating social impact investors.

He is also a senior lecturer in social entrepreneurship at MIT and was recently appointed a Gleitsman Visiting Practitioner in Social Innovation at David Gergen’s Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University. He holds an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Management from Boston University and a B.A. from Lehigh University.

Andrew Wolk