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Our Campaign - Achieving the Vision: $50 Million by 2014

Achieving World Learning's global vision means investing today in strengthening and deepening the impact of our programs worldwide while ensuring access and opportunity for all students, regardless of background, who have the desire to engage global issues through our programs. Your contribution toward our goal of $50 million by 2014 will help us achieve our vision for global impact while building a healthy endowment for long-term success and sustainability.

Recruiting and Retaining Faculty

One of World Learning's greatest impacts is in shaping future leaders who will steer the course of change in positive ways. Our academic directors and graduate faculty are educator-entrepreneurs who take on this mission by shaping tomorrow's leaders through real-world learning experiences. We must be able to recruit and retain the very best international faculty if we are to succeed in the next 75 years of our mission. Endowing chairs for academic directors, visiting professors, and scholars in residence will provide the margin of excellence needed to support not just salaries, but also the research, scholarship, and creative output of those who are the vanguard of our global vision.

Strengthening Programs

In a recent survey of World Learning alumni, Experimenters, and past participants, more than half described our programs as "transformational," underscoring the profound impact our programs have had on people's lives. Maintaining that transformational quality in all our programs, however, will require further investments as we look to continuously evolve our offerings to reflect the latest issues and trends in experiential learning and international development. Funding program incubation and development will ensure that our regional centers serve as hubs for the most dynamic learning and research activities possible.

Supporting Field Staff

The success of World Learning's programs in the field depends on the more than 1,000 local field staff who work day to day in communities around the world. Whether serving as lecturers, program assistants, language coordinators, excursion leaders, homestay families, or development field staff, these people touch people’s lives and ensure the success of our work in direct and measurable ways. Continued support in this area will enhance professional opportunities for all our global staff to advance their skills and capacities to deliver the highest quality learning experiences and help strengthen communities’ capacity for change.

Virtual Libraries and Information Services

Each of World Learning’s programs – whether through student Independent Study Projects, faculty and graduate student research, or our international development projects – produces a rich set of knowledge on a range of important global issues and topics. State-of-the-art technological infrastructures, libraries, and other information resources at each of the regional centers will ensure that the knowledge we produce as an organization can influence and shape the ongoing work of international scholars, policy makers, NGOs, and others.

Ensuring Access and Opportunity

The students and Experimenters who pass through World Learning’s programs are set on a lifelong path of international discovery and service. They are tomorrow’s global citizens and compassionate leaders who emerge from their experiences better equipped to address the global challenges that lie ahead. Our former participants and Experimenters, the ranks of whom include Nobel Laureates and civic leaders, bear witness to what’s possible when we invest in opening up the world to young people.

However, these life-changing experiences are still not accessible to many who could so greatly benefit from them. For example, of the 8% of college students who currently study abroad, less than 9% are African-American or Hispanic. We can improve this situation by providing underrepresented high school, college, and international students with the financial support needed to ensure access. The Experiment’s Outbound Ambassador Scholarship program, for example, continues to grow as a successful model for sending high-school students with financial needs on rich cross-cultural learning experiences. Many Experimenters who emerge from this scholarship program continue to give back as group leaders, active alumni, and donors.

As we look ahead at the rapidly growing field of international education, we must continue to attract the very best and most diverse student body and ensure that all young people who merit the experience of transformation that our programs provide can benefit from them.