Hey Providence Startups, join us on March 10 at 12pm for an informal lunch to learn more about how Venture for America (VFA) can set you up with a rising star talent who WANTS to work in Providence at a growing startup. Think of VFA like Teach for America for startups: talented grads from top tier schools self select to live and work at the Providence startup...for a salary that many of us can afford.
Founded by Brown University alum Andrew Yang, Venture for America is a national nonprofit fellowship program that sends top recent college grads to startups. They recruit, select, and train young people who we think are high potential/future company founders, place them to work at startups in cities investing in entrepreneurship, and support them during their 2-year fellowship. Their mission is to train our best and brightest to contribute to job growth and new enterprise creation in cities where startups make a huge difference to a community's economic future. Currently, VFA has 106 Fellows working in startups across 8 cities, 18 of whom are in Providence working for startups like Teespring, Splitwise, and Swipely. This year, we have 100 additional Fellows and are looking to connect them with companies in Providence that are searching for talented early hires.
VFA partner startups come from a wide range of industries - any high growth company looking for talent, in sectors such as internet, biotech, manufacturing, retail, cleantech, etc., and ranging in size from 3 to 80 employees. VFA Fellows are from all backgrounds and possess many different skill sets; however, we place an emphasis on attitude and aptitude, not just technical skills accrued to date. VFA provides 5 weeks of structured training and ongoing mentorship and curriculum for our Fellows to help make them more effective contributors to the startups they're working at.
If you're a promising startup looking to grow your team, please join us for a lunchtime summit at Betaspring on Monday, 3/10 at 12pm - RSVP. Feel free to email any questions to Elisabeth Deogracias at elisabeth@ventureforamerica.org.