Too Fly 2020: Impact You Can Believe In

The Too Fly Foundation was founded over three years ago with a firm belief that every student should have the opportunity to travel and experience our world and everything it has to offer. It has been with concerted effort, belief, intentions and collaboration that we continue to make progress towards that vision.

 Thanks to our community partners, donors, and the support from small to large businesses across the country - last year was an inflection point for our organization and has paved the groundwork for what we know will be an impactful year of bridging generations, inspiring curiosity abroad, and providing students in underserved communities the opportunity to gain a global perspective."

We’ve grown our core team to be able to work with intention in our core four programs: student outreach through our Too Fly Flight Academy, partnerships through our Passport Partners Program, community and foundation development through our Too Fly Fundraiser, and cultural immersion through our new program, the Beyond Borders Initiative. In addition, we’ve partnered with impact-oriented brands like Roc Nation’s Paper Planes, Dulce Vida, Samsung, and Joie Promos to make amplify our impact and influence.

TOO FLY 2020: AN IMPACT YOU CAN BELIEVE IN 

We at the Too Fly Foundation are aligned around core beliefs that will govern our programming and efforts this year. It is in these steadfast beliefs that we know will incite an impact as it relates to our Too Fly Fundraisers, Too Fly Flight Academy, Passport Partner Program, and our upcoming Beyond Borders Initiative.

Belief #1: We believe travel is a privilege that every student deserves.

A 2019 Open Door’s report highlights the racial disparity when it comes to international education, in 2018, only 6.1% of collegiate students that studied abroad were Black, 7.6% were LatinX. That number is less than 5%  and 6% respectively, when looking at high school and middle school programs. This fact is disheartening, as there are more black students in higher education than ever before.

The belief that every student should have the opportunity to travel abroad  is the backbone of our organization. In 2020, we will continue to raise awareness of the disparities of access and opportunity when it comes to international travel, but more importantly we will continue to raise funds to provide passports and travel grants through our passport partners program and too fly fundraisers. Leveraging our too fly flight academy, we will help bring awareness to students directly. Need a closer

Belief #2: Travel enhances curiosity, leadership, and emotional intelligence.

The 2019 Institute of International Education study highlighted that studying abroad has an overall positive impact on the development of a wide range of 21st century job skills, with the largest portion of respondents reported developing a broad range of cognitive, interpersonal, and interpersonal skills. Not surprisingly, the skills gained through study abroad have a long-term impact on career progression and promotion.

We are excited to better celebrate the students that your donations are helping to travel abroad. We’ve revamped our processing to best tell the stories of our passport or travel grant recipients – learning about their stories, lessons learned, and best parts of their experiences. We will be sharing these stories with our passport adopters directly and through our social media channels.

Belief #3: It takes a village to create a paradigm shift and provide access and opportunity to address travel disparities.

“It takes a village to raise a child” is an African proverb that means that an entire community of people must interact with children for those children to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment. We at the Too Fly Foundation have a similar to belief in regards to the effort it takes to send students of color abroad. We are grateful for the support our nationwide community has provided thus far and are ecstatic about your future support.

Too Fly has upgraded its internal systems and processes, and are happy to provide a more defined partner program and flexible fundraising platform. The ‘new and improved’ passport partner program is a tiered donor incentive program for monetary and in-kind donations for individuals and corporations – with perks such as luggage tags, t-shirts, jackets, and other surprises for achieving donation tiers. For those as passionate as we are when it comes to providing passports and travel grants to students, the platform will allow you to easily create your own fundraising portal to fundraise on behalf of the foundation!

Belief #4: Travel brings education out of a textbook.

Jordan, a 2019 Too Fly passport recipient, had the opportunity to visit a Ghanaian Entrepreneurial Incubator, the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, and had the ability to sit with entrepreneurs and hear their business proposals. Not only did he get to apply his learning, but he also learned more about the challenges that were being faced in Ghana and how these entrepreneurs were aiming to solve them.

It is important to us as an organization to bring global learning and rich culture to students in the states in parallel to us providing resources to send students abroad. In 2020, we will begin the expansion of our too fly flight academy and partner with middle schools and high schools in Washington DC, New York City and Dallas to educate students on travel etiquette, cultural immersion, securing travel scholarships, and show that there is a bigger world to explore. In addition, we will be curating a new passport pop-up experience tailored to historically black colleges and universities.

Belief #5: Community investment is key in making systemic change.

 It has always been an intention of Too Fly to embody the “each one teach one” mindset; it is imperative that each generation pours into the next to continue to cultivate a passion for travel but also to aid in mentorship and providing access and opportunity to travel, learn and grow.

It is with this belief, that we are intentional in curating experiences in which we bridge generational gaps at our Too Fly fundraisers, and that we have leaders and travelers of color present at our Too Fly Flight Academy. This representation is vital because we know that with our students, “what they see is what they’ll be.” In 2019, we’ve expanded our team to focus on our pillars of influence, development, outreach events, fundraising events, and brand strategy; all of which will help us reach new heights in 2020.

“The time to mold the next generation of leaders is not when students are ‘grown up’ or graduated college,” shares Bola Ibidapo, Cofounder & Program Director of the Too Fly Foundation. “We must start molding the next generation of leaders today. Travel allows us to groom community leaders and impactful businesspersons that are empathetic, culturally savvy and boundlessly creative.”

The future will be a reflection of the investment we put into today’s youth. This is the urgency in the heart of the Too Fly Foundation. Together, as community and business partners, we can continue to broaden the horizons of our young people. We hope that your join us this remarkable journey - the #TooFly way.