Venture For America, an entrepreneurial concept that borrows the concepts of Teach For America, plans to launch out of Detroit next year, a move that seeks to attract another pipeline of talented college graduates to the Motor City. The New York City-based nonprofit will pair recent college graduates with startups in Detroit and Providence, R.I., in its first class of fellows. The programs will provide young people with a job for two years and local businesses with top talent.

Andrew Yang, founder and president of Venture For America, chose Detroit not just because of its economic challenges but also because of the growing number of people working to reinvent the local economy. “Detroit is a hotbed of entrepreneurship,” Yang said. “There are limitless opportunities to make an individual mark or career here. … A lot of our success in Detroit is based on all the people who are already doing amazing things here.” Yang, 36, is an entrepreneur himself, taking part in four startups to date. The last, Manhattan GMAT, he served as CEO until the test prep company was acquired by Kaplan Inc. at the end of 2009. The Brown University graduate wants to make similar opportunities available to high-performing college graduates who want to build companies but aren’t sure where to start.

Venture For America will provide that portal, mirroring Teach For America’s model of signing up top college graduates to spend two years teaching in challenged school districts. The idea is to introduce a potential career in teaching to some members of the next generation of movers and shakers who might otherwise never consider it.
Venture For America has already rounded up a number of big names as partners for its Detroit launch, including O’Connor Real Estate and Development founder Ryan Cooley, Bizdom U and the New Economy Initiative.

Teach For America’s model has proved immensely popular. The nonprofit is the No. 1 employer of college graduates in the U.S. About 48,000 college graduates applied for Teach For America 5,200 positions in 2011. Among those applicants are 12 percent of the seniors from Ivy League schools and 8 percent of the University of Michigan‘s graduating class. To Yang, this shows young people want to make a difference.

“There is this supply of young people who desperately want to get into startups and build businesses and create jobs,” Yang said. “On the other hand, there are these businesses that would love to have that sort of talent working for them. Venture For America is going to build a bridge between those two groups.” Venture For America also promises to become one more piece of the puzzle to slowing the brain drain in both Detroit and Michigan. Programs like Teach For America and City Year Detroit already send hundreds of recent college graduates into the city and surrounding suburbs to help improve the region’s quality of life. These programs also give participants the opportunity to plant roots and improve their perception about a place they might otherwise avoid.

“All of these activities to create opportunities for young professionals to live and work in Detroit are wonderful,” said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc., an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit. “It begins to change the equation about the city and the region for attracting talent.” To Glazer, young people and immigrants are essential to the city’s future viability. “Having young talent settle in Detroit instead of Chicago and Seattle is essential to the survival of the city,” he said.

Adrian Walker is one of those local entrepreneurs who would love to take advantage of some of Venture For America’s talent portal. The 20-something UM graduate started First Element Entertainment, a film, animation and mobile technology firm, three years ago. The six-person startup recently began participating in the Detroit Creative Corridor Creative Ventures Acceleration Program. For Walker, providing jobs for Venture For America fellows is a no-brainer for local small businesses. “Every single startup and entrepreneur would happily accept talented young grads,” said Walker, CEO of First Element. “That’s what we’re looking for. We all have job fairs on our calendars for the fall, but Venture For America promises to make it much more fluid.”

Josh Linkner, CEO of Detroit Venture Partners, a downtown Detroit-based venture capital firm, added that startups in his company’s portfolio would happily take as many as 20 Venture For America fellows in its first year. It’s important to provide support for entrepreneurs, Linkner said, because otherwise concerns about debt and risk aversion might drive ambitious people fresh out of business school to take the safe way out.  “So often what happens is talented people take a big job at a big company,” Linkner said. “Many of them look back at that decision 30 years later with regret.”

Randal Charlton, executive director of TechTown, also sees the potential in Venture For America. The business accelerator plans to leverage Venture’s talent pipeline for its startups. “To have pre-screened, high-performing college graduates working with our companies for two years would be an enormous help,” he said.  Jonathon Triest, 29, managing partner of Ludlow Ventures, which is moving to the Madison Theatre Building in Detroit this fall, said he is a fan of Venture For America and expects big things from it. Ludlow, an early stage venture capital firm, has 12 tech startups in its portfolio, such as Zferral.com and UseHipster.com, and expects to have 15 by the end of the quarter.  “It’s extremely valuable for both parties, especially in a city like Detroit where we are trying to create jobs,” Triest said. “The entrepreneurial spirit is one of the most contagious things I can think of.”