This is the third post in the Frequently-Asked Questions series. Be sure to also check out Visa Options for International Student Entrepreneurs and Finding a Teammate
Scaling a nonprofit is one of the biggest challenges for student founders. On Oct. 14, Joshua Pierce (Tisch '18), founder of Dream Opportunity, joined the Leslie eLab to discuss how he built a mission-driven organization that now spans seven countries, employs more than 60 people and secures millions in corporate partnerships.
Start with a mission — but make it measurable
Dream Opportunity began with the goal of sparking conversations about race and belonging in high schools during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. While the mission was heartfelt, Pierce soon realized it lacked a sustainable structure both financially and operationally.
“How do you measure that someone is less racist? How do you monetize a business around that?” said Pierce.
He also discovered that his programs were primarily reaching affluent schools rather than the under-resourced communities he originally hoped to serve. That realization pushed him to redefine his mission around equity of access, building a model centered on measurable outcomes and broader reach.
Do customer discovery (yes, even for a nonprofit)
To put that new vision into action, Pierce joined the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute’s Summer Launchpad program, where he learned that nonprofits, like startups, must understand their customers. In his case, his audience expanded beyond schools to include companies with corporate social responsibility goals — helping them achieve their employee engagement and social impact objectives.
Through LinkedIn and email outreach, Pierce contacted more than 300 companies and met with about 60 — not to pitch his idea, but to learn what companies truly valued in education and community partnerships. Those conversations helped him shape Dream Opportunity’s programs around real-world insights from the partners most likely to sustain them.
“Instead of me building a business based on what I thought was cool, the company is telling me all the answers,” he said. “Let me just build the company in a way that gives other companies what they want.”
Make it easy to say yes.
Once those corporate relationships began to form, Pierce focused on making Dream Opportunity the easiest organization to work with — ensuring his team handled everything from student coordination to logistics and media coverage.
“You want to make it low effort and high impact for your customer,” said Pierce.
After each event, Dream Opportunity provided measurable outcomes through surveys and testimonials, turning feel-good moments into quantifiable evidence of success. This data-driven approach strengthened relationships and made securing future partnerships far easier.
Nonprofit + Forprofit Structure
As Dream Opportunity expanded, Pierce realized that despite reaching 12,000 students annually, the organization represented only a fraction of the 15.6 million high school students in the United States.
His solution was Dream Career AI, a companion app designed to give students “the future in the palm of their hand.” The app utilizes gamified assessments to match students with potential careers and majors that align with their interests and personalities.
By pairing the nonprofit’s on-the-ground programs with a scalable, tech-driven platform, Pierce created a hybrid model that bridges the gap between limited in-person opportunities and broader digital access to career readiness.
“We’re leveraging all the things that we did yesterday to be able to build the career tomorrow,” said Pierce.
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