Tag: Educational Leadership

Top stories that made waves in 2024 text with photos of student in lab, student on field trip, and student on campus
News and Stories

Top Stories That Made Waves in 2024

Our programs provide students of color from low-income backgrounds with the educational opportunities, career skills and experiences, and financial freedom they need to meet their goals and thrive. Here are some of the highlights of what that looked like in 2024 and a preview of what’s to come in 2025.

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Cover of impact report with 35 years of impact text
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Sharing our latest impact report

This year marks a significant milestone for Making Waves – 35 years of empowering students of color from low-income backgrounds to break through barriers to educational success and economic mobility.

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Headshots of Patrick with text for how to build your team adnd embed DEIB in how you operate
News and Stories

How to build your team and embed DEIB in how you and your team operate

If you’re an aspiring or new CEO, having an incredible team is one of the most important levers for driving organizational impact and outcomes. This means a top priority will be building your team and embedding diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in how you and your team operate. CEO Patrick O’Donnell shares learnings from his first five years as CEO.

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Headshot of Patrick next to text for how to define an approach to inclusive decision-making
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How to define an approach to strong, inclusive decision-making

Decision-making is an Achilles heel and pain point for so many organizations. CEO Patrick O’Donnell shares three approaches to defining a strong and inclusive approach to decision-making as a part of a series on lessons learned during his first five years as a nonprofit CEO.

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Headshot of Patrick next to text for how to think big and find sustainability: lessons from first five years as CEO
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How to think big and find sustainability

CEO Patrick O’Donnell shares three approaches to thinking big and having an impactful vision while also finding work and life balance as a part of a series on lessons learned during his first five years as a nonprofit CEO.

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Group of students talking in circle outside with text overlay for listening to Gen Z to reimagine education and employment pathways
News and Stories

Listening to Gen Z to Reimagine Education and Employment Pathways

CEO Patrick O’Donnell spotlights how Gen Z is ringing the alarm bell, saying current education and workforce systems aren’t working. He shares how Making Waves is listening to learn from Gen Z and testing and learning from some new approaches – from mentorship to AI to internships.

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Making Waves Foundation core values repeated over and over. The values repeated are: Drive Impact, Promote Equity, Build Community, Do hard Things, and Learn and Grow.
News and Stories

Making Waves Foundation Adopts New Core Values

In December 2021, the Making Waves Foundation Board of Directors unanimously voted to approve new organizational Core Values. The values will guide the work of the Making Waves Foundation community of students, alumni, staff members, board members, and other stakeholders in pursuit of the foundation’s mission to advance educational opportunity and strategic plan to increase the college graduation rate for underrepresented students in Contra Costa County.

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