January 14, 2018
By Amy Nelson, CEO & Laila Selim, Director of Talent
When Venture for America began our Fellowship program in 2012, we had a fairly narrow set of criteria for who could become a VFA Fellow. One had to be a recent college graduate (no more than 2 years removed from school) with a GPA above 3.0, have no felony convictions, be a US Citizen or permanent resident. We modeled these guidelines off of our peer institutions who had years of experience building fellowship programs.
Today, we have eased or modified essentially all of these restrictions. We have found that Fellows with some experience add significant texture to our cohort. Although the positions we place Fellows into remain entry-level, we are exploring pathways for more senior recruits. It turns out that one’s college GPA is at best a remote proxy for their ability to succeed as an entrepreneur – and that the excellent syllabus followers may not be best suited to operate in highly ambiguous startup situations. The “ban the box” movement made clear to us that those convicted of minor drug crimes – or those working hard to turn their life around after incarceration – face structural prejudices in hiring that functionally eliminate their chances of pursuing careers in many professions. So we nixed that restriction too.
But perhaps the most insidious of these requirements was that Fellows must be US citizens or green card holders. Our logic was straightforward: we work with startups who don’t have the bandwidth or wherewithal to sponsor work visas. The H1-B process is complicated and dominated by large, sophisticated firms who snatch up a shrinking number of available slots. Amy has seen it firsthand, as her husband is on a work-sponsored visa. Laila grew up in Cairo, the daughter of an Egyptian and an American. Surrounded by children from dozens of countries, the true value of an American passport only became clear when she came to college in the US. Our small organization and our partners were ill-equipped to navigate this field on our own; so we closed the door to this set of potential applicants.
But then, a few things happened. A resourceful young woman with a Turkish passport willed her way into getting a visa, taking on the legal costs herself. As a small nonprofit, the costs associated with visas are an enduring barrier. We gladly accepted her into our program. More exceptions sprung up, and we eventually realized that we had been missing out on an entire category of highly ambitious and incredibly talented young people: the Dreamers, or students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, status.
This summer, VFA Board Member and Founder of the XO Group David Liu came to speak at VFA’s summer Training Camp. David was raised by Chinese immigrant parents and has been a huge advocate for getting more Asians into influential positions in this country. His talk is always a highlight, but this summer he posed a question to the audience: “how many of you are immigrants or the children of immigrants?” Nearly half the hands in the room went up – we were floored. We knew we had a diverse and talented group, but we didn’t realize just how many first- and second-generation strivers we had.
The Venture for America Class of 2017 is the most diverse cohort in our history. These young people bring their unique experiences and perspectives to enrich our community, their cities, and their organizations. We have seen our community become stronger, and our Fellows more adept at solving problems, as a result. Heterogeneous teams are proven to outperform homogenous teams; we have no doubt that this will prove true as our Fellows build companies together in the years to come.
This is the future of entrepreneurship in America. These are the people who are going to solve our greatest challenges. Anyone who runs a business should look to Dreamers and other immigrant innovators to keep their companies current and forward looking. The business opportunities of tomorrow will continue to globalize, and we need a workforce that is hungry, audacious, and ready to take on those problems head-on.
This article originally appeared on Forbes.com