Value of starting a successful nonprofit as a Freshman?

Applying to College
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Hello! I am currently a Sophomore in high school that started a nonprofit midway through freshman year. My academics are fine - a 4.4 at one of the most rigorous public schools in the nation (hoping it’ll keep going up). I also got a 1410 on the PSAT score (with a predicted score of 1480 on the SAT). I still have close to a year to bring that above a 1500.

Anyways, I co-founded a registered nonprofit midway through freshman year. It’s been around for just about one year. We have 270 interns, over 100 influencers (15k followers or more), over 1-million website visits, and several social media accounts run by us with over 1 million followers. With thousands of applications, we are looking to expand big this summer. We’ve interviewed big names such as Stephen Fry, Jo Jorgensen, Howie Hawkins, and countless professors. We’ve partnered with dozens of organizations including the Harvard Kennedy School and NYU Center for SM and Politics for several events.

We are currently focused on politics and policy making - promoting political discourse is the centerpiece of the organization. We run many programs to do so and are expecting to launch 140 chapters by the beginning of September this year. I have been investing most of my extra curricular time into this. Spending between 2-4 hours per day on this I barely have time for anything else.

I am an Eagle Scout, and have had a couple internships including two in congressional campaign management, one as a deputy campaign director on the Jorgensen for President campaign and one in VC. I didn’t know that a nonprofit like this could genuinely be counted as an extra credit back when I started it, I was genuinely just thinking of filling the gap that other political nonprofits such as JSA or HSDA weren’t filling.

WHAT I AM WONDERING - Is it worth spending that much time on this? Could starting such a successful nonprofit be considered a spike? If not, how successful would a nonprofit need to be in order to be considered a spike?

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It is worth the time if it is something you care deeply about and it doesn’t hurt your academics.

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^^^This^^^^

Your ECs are for you and for the causes for which the organization was established. Do you care about those causes? Do you want the non-profit too succeed? Most importantly - do you want the non-profit to continue after you have left?

That is how successful non-profits start. The hundreds of vanity projects that kids start in high school under the illusion that “starting a nonprofit” is a “good EC”, that “college like”, are a waste of time and effort, which barely exist to begin with, are sustained by the friends, families, and social media followers of the founder, do little to help the cause, take away support from the established non-profits which are better at utilizing these resources, and fall apart when the establisher is accepted to college and drops it.

Nonprofits that actually help are those which are established to fulfill a need, by people who are passionate about the cause, are able to ignite that passion in others, bring more attention to the cause, and thus more support to all organizations that support the cause, and usually survive, because the establishing people either continue, or pass it on to some of the other people who have joined them.

THAT is its value.

Colleges which care about things like passion and social activism are looking for that, not for “establishing a non-profit” line on the resume.

Ironically, this type of activity generally only helps with colleges if the person who is engaged in the activity cares more about the actions of the non-profit than they care about being accepted to a “better” college.

So, ask yourself: “would I do this instead of another EC which could possibly help me get into a more ‘prestigious’ college?”. If the answer is “yes”, than continue. If the answer is “no”, then don’t.

Bottom line, are you doing this so, when you have to leave it behind, you can say “WOW! I really was able to do a lot of good for my cause!” or are you doing it so you can say “WOW! That really helped me get into a somewhat more prestigious college than I would have otherwise!”

However, no matter how important you think the cause is, you are in high school, and your education should be your primary focus. Finishing your education will allow you to contribute more to your cause than putting in a few more hours as a high school student.

Also, I recommend that, for your own good, also engage in at least one physical activity as an EC - preferably a non-competitive one (unless you genuinely prefer competitive ones). It will help you physically and mentally.

So congratulation on what you have already done - it seems pretty impressive.

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Hey @MWolf - thank you so much for your extensive response. It cleared a lot of things up in my mind. For sport, I currently run and try to do so every morning, it really helps a lot in terms of my focus. I appreciate the kind words and do plan on continuing to run it once I’m in college.

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