The Posse Foundation identifies, recruits and trains incredible young leaders and sends them in multicultural teams - Posses - to 64 top colleges and universities across the country.

Current events have brought into sharp focus the systemic inequities that afflict our nation. Building a more just society for all will require collaborative leaders who span a rich diversity of backgrounds and perspectives, those who are capable of shifting policy and practice, culture and power. Posses core mission is to develop such leaders.

When you make a gift to support our award-winning leadership program, you join a community thats making a real difference. An investment in Posse is an investment in our Scholars. Your contributions will sustain us as we ensure our students stay on track to graduation, despite the unprecedented obstacles in their way.

Posse New York

Established in 1989, Posse New York has served 3,054 outstanding local student leaders. These young people have received $456 million in scholarships from our top-tier partner colleges and universities.

Posse is currently conducting its Dynamic Assessment Process and received more than 3,200 nominations from New York. We will ultimately select 130 students to begin college as Posse Scholars in fall 2024. Posse New York's current college and university partners are: Babson College, Brandeis University, California Institute of the Arts, Connecticut College, DePauw University, Franklin & Marshall College, Lafayette College, Lawrence University, Middlebury College, Smith College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vanderbilt University and Wheaton College.

Posse Growth Plans

Posse has seen ever-increasing relevance and impact in the current global climate. Our commitment to building a more equitable American society has found broader platforms, taking Posse's proven success in virtual programming-- developed out of necessity in the pandemic-- and channeling it to amplify our work. One major outcome: in 2020, Posse doubled our reach to recruit students from new cities across the U.S., in a virtual expansion that will welcome geographically diverse Posses from Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Memphis, Newark, Philadelphia, Phoenix and select cities in Indiana, Minnesota and Virginia.

Meet our Scholars

Posse Scholar Angelique Taveras, a rising senior, is co-president of the social justice peer mentoring organization at Lafayette College, encouraging discourse on multiculturalism, intersectionality and equity.

An aspiring teacher, Angelique won the Breakthrough Boston Elizabeth D. Hodder Award last year for Excellence in Teaching, recognizing a curriculum she created on de-stigmatization of Black hair through African and Afro-Latinx history. This summer, she is teaching 9th grade English Language Arts virtually with a focus on Black and Brown youth. Angelique has already been offered full-time positions post-graduation with Urban Teachers and Teach for America.

Posse New York Scholar Taina Perez graduated from Franklin & Marshall College with a major in Environmental Studies and minor in Latin American Studies. For her involvement in the school community and her strong academic standing Taina was awarded the Sidney Wise Public Affairs Internship, the Alice Distler Award, the Karel Fellowship, and the Marshall Fellowship.

The Marshall Fellowship provided Taina funding to pursue research of her own in San Jose del Guaviare, Colombia. In Colombia Taina worked with Arca De Amor to create water delivery systems for two endangered indigenous tribes, the Jiw and Nukak, and investigated the impact of nonprofits and how they contribute or harm indigenous vitality. She went on to study the politics of food, water, and energy abroad in Vietnam, Morocco, and Bolivia.

Through the Payne International Development Fellowship, she hopes to learn about successful environmental projects, including WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) programs across the globe, and ultimately serve as an Environmental Officer. Taina is pursuing a Master of Environmental Management at Yale University to work on inclusive developmental projects that involve the community on all levels.

Sulman Usman, a Posse alumnus of Vanderbilt University, is the co-founder of Adaptive Green, a leading startup in sustainable roof technology. The company conceived of and built the innovative new green roof at NYCs United Nations headquarters.

After studying engineering science at Vanderbilt and a brief stint at JPMorgan, Sulman leaped to entrepreneurial business and joined LMN Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund. It was there that he stepped in as CEO for a startup at age 22, before leaving to pursue green building.

Under Sulmans leadership, Adaptive Green has seen its portfolio grow by nearly half a million square feet of garden and solar roofs in under 4 years, with revenues just under $5 million.

Its endless, the amount of Posse connectionssome through my old classmates, but on and beyond into everyday life, Sulman says. Im infinitely grateful to Posse; it has been amazing to me both in college and in the years since. Its an organization I wholeheartedly support.