October: From the CEO | Elevate Indianapolis

Transparently, over the past week, I have had to fight back tears several times.

Having heard so many stories of the impact, transformation, or struggles of our Elevate Indianapolis students, either directly or through our full-time Teacher-Mentors, I’ve been overwhelmed.

One example was a brave young lady from the Elevate class of 2025 at Arsenal Tech High School. She was in tears while being interviewed for a senior feature to share her story of perseverance and struggle as she strives toward the future. I was humbled to tears by her self-awareness and vulnerability as she expressed her gratitude for the life-changing relationships and opportunities in Elevate, which have helped her through some very dire circumstances in her young life.

I’ve been reminded time and time again in the last week the pictures of “success” are, and must be, diverse as we meet students at different places and situations and walk with them toward different futures.

This post on our Elevate Slack by one of our lead Teacher-Mentors captures it in better words than I ever could.

 

 

I see such beauty in our students, pressing forward toward a brighter future, amid brokenness at times, and desperately wanting to thrive in our city and state. This is what continues to spur me forward daily, and I hope it provides encouragement to you as an advocate, donor, educator, volunteer, and community partner. 

I’m proud of a team, supported by a board, donors, and volunteers, that invests in building up long-term, thriving members of our community. Our team’s celebrated outcomes will be incredibly diverse as needed for a diverse city of differing talent pipelines and neighborhoods.

The Search Institute created the Developmental Relationships Framework, five elements—expressed in 20 specific actions— that are proven to catalyze young people’s lives: express care, challenge growth, provide support, expand possibilities, and share power. Ultimately, the Search Institute created this framework to embrace a progressive journey of high-impact relationships.

Thanks to the support of our community, our Elevate Indianapolis team does our best to embody these relational elements through our 1:1, small group, and large group teaching and mentoring with every student who invites us in. It leads to measured outcomes we can all be proud of.

Among dozens of metrics, we’re proud that Elevate has seen:

  • A 99% graduation rate 5 years running,
  • A 96% on-track-to-graduate rate,
  • 81% of our students who report helping peers in need,
  • and an exponential increase in out-of-school engagement, which always leads to long-term success.

Hope to see more of you – yes, you – at an upcoming site visitengagement event, or volunteer opportunity soon! 

Serving with you,

Aaron Story
CEO & President, Elevate Indianapolis