BUILDing Leaders

We’re proud of all of our achievements. We’re most proud, however, that 100% of BUILD graduates have completed high school and enrolled in college.

History

The Birth of the Organization


In 1997, Suzanne McKechnie Klahr was a student at Stanford Law School. During her volunteer work in East Palo Alto (EPA) she noticed a contradiction: While entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley were making fortunes based on suspect ideas, entrepreneurs in EPA were going nowhere with great ideas.

The difference had nothing to do with intelligence or talent or ambition. The difference was access: One group had it, the other didn’t.

In 1999, Suzanne won a Skadden public service fellowship and started a counseling program for adult entrepreneurs. One day, four high school students walked in and said, “Lady, we’re done with school and want to start a business. We were told you’re the business lady who can help us.” Suzanne said she would help them start a business on one condition: They had to work hard in school.

Suzanne saw four students with enormous potential, but who were not motivated to succeed in school. However, like many low-income student, they were interested in making money. With that framework, she decided that by helping underserved students to start their own businesses - while having them commit to improving their academic performance – they could build the self-esteem necessary to become successful adults and community leaders.

Suzanne taught those four high school students basic entrepreneurship, located investors, and helped incorporate their t-shirt and sweatshirt company. BUILD was born.

A Record of Success


After starting in 1999 in one school near East Palo, the BUILD program is now available at six high schools in the Bay Area, including two Oakland high schools.

Five BUILD students have been awarded the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) National Youth Entrepreneur of the Year award. Three BUILD Instructors have been named NFTE’s Entrepreneurship Teacher of the Year.

BUILD has been nominated for several awards including the Fast Company Social Capitalist Award (finalist), Manhattan Institute Social Entrepreneurship Award, and the Roberts’ Enterprise Development Fund Trailblazer Award.

BUILD has been featured in the media including CNN, PBS, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Bay Area Business Woman News, and Palo Alto Weekly News.

However, the true measure of BUILD’s success lies in our student stories. After all, they’re the reason why BUILD exists.