Reflections, Milestones, and a Growing Nonprofit
Everyone deserves the chance to discover their full potential. For some, this means landing their dream job. For others, it means building a life in a new country. Everyone finds their potential in different ways, but everyone also faces barriers to overcome in order to reach it.
This is the fundamental belief that Amanda Wang and Jun Yoon shared when they launched Potencia, an innovative educational nonprofit that empowers adult immigrants to build mobility and achieve community integration through personalized, low-cost English language tutoring. Ultimately, the nonprofit works to help adult immigrants and refugees gain the ability to overcome barriers in order to reach their potential.
In the fall of 2019, Amanda and Jun were two international students entering the MS in Innovation & Management (MSIM) program at Tufts Gordon Institute. At the core of the graduate program are Innovation Sprints, projects that challenge students to find a problem worth solving and put together a venture that aims to bring that solution to fruition. As Jun and Amanda dove into the program and worked to find a problem worth solving, they knew their larger goal was to positively influence immigrant and refugee populations in the United States. As international students themselves, they felt their own experiences brought a deeper understanding of the barriers adults in these communities face as they navigate a new country.
While conducting customer discovery interviews through the MSIM, the team worked to identify the root of those barriers. They spoke with immigrants and refugees, government employees, and other community members to find a fundamental need they could focus on to help break those barriers down.
“There are many different issues that this population faces, such as employment and housing, so initially we did try to tap into those first,” Jun said, speaking about how they settled on the specific barrier of language. “A few weeks into the program, we conducted an interview with a government representative who mentioned that language is a foundational barrier behind those other issues – housing, jobs, and more – for immigrants. We found that about 95% of adult needs are not being met within the current system, which gave us the drive to be part of a solution.”
Once they had narrowed down the problem they wanted to solve, Amanda, Jun, and their peers moved to thinking of a solution. With the support of Tufts Gordon Institute’s faculty and network, through many iterations and conversations, they landed on the idea of low-cost tutoring. Their organization would recruit students interested in volunteering their time to tutor adult immigrants in English; they would train the tutors, match them with learners suited to their backgrounds, and support both sides through the tutoring process.
When asked how the MSIM and Tufts Gordon Institute helped get their venture off the ground, Amanda said, “The whole structure of the program was so impactful. The foundation in entrepreneurship, learning about negotiation and communication, gaining an understanding of financial modeling, and rounding it all out with authentic leadership was so important.” Thinking back on her education, Amanda noted that the program’s impact extends well beyond Potencia and her role as a co-founder. “I’m truly still using everything the faculty taught us. Learning to give and receive feedback, and how to enter and navigate difficult conversations, are two things that don’t just apply to my work – they apply to every aspect of life. The MSIM has helped me become a better leader. I’m still learning, but those foundations we gained were incredibly important.”
Now, six years removed from Tufts, Amanda and Jun continue to iterate, grow, and move Potencia forward. The nonprofit has hit a few challenges, as any entrepreneurial journey does, but they’ve taken those challenges as signs to pivot and rethink the way they work.
When Potencia first started, tutoring sessions were held in person, but in 2020 that was no longer an option. “We had to pivot to being online, and it turned out to have its own benefits,” Amanda said. “Being online removes the barriers for people who may have childcare responsibilities or limited transportation. It also allowed us to expand our service offerings because we no longer have geographic limits, so we were able to recruit more tutors and learners after the online shift.” Potencia now uses a web app to host tutoring sessions, and lets tutors and learners select times that work best for their schedules, making the experience even more personalized.
Despite this major shift in how the nonprofit functions, Potencia has continued to make strides across Massachusetts. In the past six years, Potencia has trained over 350 tutors, served 340+ learners, and hosted more than 2,000 learning hours.
In an exciting continuation and recognition of successes, Potencia recently received a grant from the Cummings Foundation. “This is definitely a huge milestone. We’ve applied for the past couple of years, so the moment we got it, we were able to reflect on the win as a real sign of growth for Potencia and for ourselves,” Amanda said of their initial reaction. The Cummings Grant is a highly competitive award for nonprofit organizations in Massachusetts with a strong emphasis on doing good in society. With the funding from the grant, Potencia plans to continue making strides for refugee and immigrant communities: “People will say that because we’re a tech-enabled nonprofit, we should be automating everything, but when you work with immigrants, there’s a certain level of trust you have to build within the community. We plan to continue investing in people, in those communities, and in our partnerships to keep building that trust.”
This grant is just the beginning of building that foundation of trust within the communities, growing Potencia as an organization, and continuing to strive toward their ultimate goal of seeing adult immigrants and refugees break down barriers to achieve their full potential. Amanda and Jun say they don’t know exactly what the next six years, or even the next six months, will look like, but what they do know is that they’ll continue working toward that vision:
“We’re working toward one vision: that one day, every immigrant in this country will get the opportunity they deserve, whether it’s better economic opportunities, finding a better job, getting promoted at work, or educational opportunities – we want that day to happen. I know there’s a long way to go, but that’s the end game. So, for right now, every plan we put in place goes in that direction,” Amanda said.
Jun added, “As we move forward, we really have to consider the steps we take to reach our goals. Because this isn’t just about providing a one-time service; it’s individual life journeys that we have to take into account, so we approach our growth with care and intentionality.”
That drive to unlock potential is written into the organization’s name. In Potencia’s early days, Jun was searching for something to call the nonprofit; inspiration struck while riding the subway in Seoul, thinking over what, ultimately, they wanted people to achieve through their organization. Through his train of thought, the word “potential” surfaced. He looked up its Latin root, potentia, and knew he’d found the name – later softening the “t” to a “c” after early testers stumbled over the pronunciation. “The root was that we wanted to honor people’s potential,” Jun said. “I think it’s still relevant to what we’re doing now.”
The same idea is what first drew Jun and Amanda to Tufts Gordon Institute, and it’s what they hope to give back to the program going forward. “It is my dream to host Tufts Gordon Institute students one day,” Amanda said. “It would be nice to have some social impact workshops, or collaborate in other ways, so that we can amplify the program’s community-powered model that impacted us so positively.”
Six years past graduation, Potencia is looking ahead to the next six: continuing to help immigrants and refugees break down the barriers between where they are and their full potential.