Teach for America Taps Titans

No. 10 on our list of the Best Places to Launch a Career, the nonprofit is raking in big bucks and raising its profile

by Lindsey Gerdes and Sophia Asare

The scene is a swanky dinner party at the Waldorf Astoria. Seated around the hotel’s glamorous ballroom are such titans of finance as Cerberus Capital chief Stephen Feinberg (days after his firm purchased a majority stake in Chrysler Group), Wachovia (WB) Chairman Ken Thompson , and Jon Winkelried, president of the Goldman Sachs Group (GS). What event brought out New York's A-list financiers? A benefit for Teach for America, the nonprofit organization founded by a Princeton University senior to recruit college grads to teach in low-income communities across the U.S. for two-year commitments.

The high-profile soirée held this spring raised $4 million for Teach for America—its biggest fundraiser to date. The money will help the organization realize a plan announced two years ago: to more than double in size, from 3,500 to 7,500 members, by the end of the decade. Today, the organization has more than 5,000 members in 26 regions across the country. Teach for America is one of BusinessWeek's Best Places to Launch a Career, jumping from No. 43 last year to No. 10 on our annual ranking of the top U.S. employers for young professionals entering the workforce.

The 16-year-old organization fared well in our ranking, not only because of its increasing influence in the education community—some 282 former corps members now run their own schools—but also due to its increasing popularity with students and career-services directors. This is at least partially explained by the community-minded-but-savvy mindset of Gen Yers entering the workforce today. They are drawn to organizations like Teach for America and the Peace Corps (which rose from No. 38 to No. 23 on our list), says Claudia Tattanelli, CEO of Universum USA, the research firm that provides data for the student popularity component of our ranking. "These are nonprofits that have a reputation that will look good on a résumé."

Forging Powerful Partnerships

Teach for America has even forged partnerships in recent years with 100 graduate school programs and 15 employers, including Deloitte & Touche (No. 1 on this year's list), Google (GOOG) (No. 5), and General Electric (GE) (No. 12). These companies let students defer their job offers to spend two years teaching. Corporate Partner JPMorgan (JPM) (No. 17) gives students their signing bonuses before their two-year stints at Teach for America and offers summer programs to keep them involved with the company while they are teaching.

Bob Corcoran, vice-president of Corporate Citizenship at General Electric, says that his company's partnership with Teach for America is a win-win. "We [GE and TFA] look for the same types of people, people who want to make a difference, people who have good leadership qualities and who truly want to jump in and lead something. Teachers do that everyday," Corcoran explains. "When these students come out of college and they defer to take on these roles, they learn how to lead. And Teach for America gets some great students who otherwise would have been nervous to jump out of their discipline and teach."

Meanwhile, young workers view Teach for America as a valuable launching pad to an assortment of careers and paths. Former D.C. corps member Rachael Brown is amazed by the strong support network of alumni.