Empowering Education

As he approached the end of his undergraduate career at Emory University, Craig Robinson ’91 planned to apply to law school. He contacted his academic advisor, a political science professor with whom he had taken several courses, and asked if the advisor would write a recommendation.

“He told me no,” says Robinson. “He said, ‘Craig, after everything you’ve studied in my classes, if you understand how politics work and who has access to what opportunities, if you want to make a difference, no offense, but we don’t need another attorney. Make a difference in education.’”

This advice set Robinson down a path that would become his life’s work. After earning two master’s degrees from the University of Michigan, one in secondary education and another in educational administration, he spent five years working in boarding school admissions. It was a valuable experience that provided clarity of purpose. Robinson felt a call to drive systemic change, and he realized he could maximize his impact by working for educational nonprofits.

For the past two decades, Robinson has worked in leadership positions at several organizations dedicated to creating more equitable opportunities in education. Today, he is the president and CEO of Matriculate, a nonprofit whose mission is to increase access to the nation’s top colleges for high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds.

“The more I’ve been on this path,” Robinson says of his career, “I realize that it’s a calling. It’s not a choice. I cannot in any way say I led, or designed, or did this in order to do that.”

Robinson’s journey may not have been premeditated, but it makes perfect sense in the context of his own story. Growing up in Brooklyn, he was raised in a family that prioritized education. “I always describe my mother as being unlettered but not unlearned,” says Robinson. “She did not have the opportunity to go to college and earn a degree, but she was my fiercest advocate.”

One morning during the fall of his eighth grade year, Robinson heard his name called over the loudspeaker. He feared he was in trouble as the guidance counselor summoned him to his office. His worries evaporated when he learned that he had been selected to participate in A Better Chance (ABC), a nonprofit that works with independent schools to create opportunities for students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Robinson discovered Tabor through ABC. Visiting campus for the first time, his eyes were opened to a world of possibilities he had never considered. “It triggered something in my 13-year-old mind,” says Robinson. “What else is out there that I don’t know about?”

The decision to attend was not a hard one. “Year after year, my mind continued to be blown by the offerings, the care, the teachers, the sports, the balance of it all,” says Robinson. “It helped me to mature. It put me in a different environment with kids I typically wasn’t around. Just like I’m sure there were kids who had never been around kids like me. But we all had to figure it out and figure out what community meant. It was a safe space to make a whole lot of mistakes, and it was a safe space to grow. I’m indebted to Tabor for that experience.”

Much of his gratitude is directed at the teachers and role models who helped him discover a future he never considered. “When it came time to apply to college, I had some incredible mentors,” says Robinson. “They just kept asking questions to peel back the onion to understand what was a good match for me.” In many ways, his current work is inspired by this experience.

At Matriculate, Robinson leads an organization that has helped close the gap between talent and opportunity in higher education. The program pairs high school students with undergraduate advisors who have been trained by Matriculate to coach them through the college search process. Since its inception, it has served roughly 15,000 students and has formed partnerships with elite universities such as Stanford, Princeton, and Yale. A recent study conducted through Bloomberg Philanthropies’ College Point initiative found that Matriculate has driven a 24% increase in the attendance of low and moderate-income students at top-tier colleges.

“Ultimately students are choosing to apply and enroll in colleges that are going to make a seismic difference for them and their families,” says Robinson. “That’s what happened for me, a first generation student from Brooklyn to go to college and subsequently see other family members go to college, and then begin to see the ripple effect in my family and my community.”

In 2022, Robinson joined Tabor’s Board of Trustees and co-chairs the Diversity, Equity, and Belonging committee. It’s a role that has allowed him to merge his passion for his alma mater with his unwavering commitment to educational justice.

From the moment Anaelle Ndoye ’17 visited the Khonkhoma School in Senegal, she was determined to help its students. She stumbled upon the school by chance. In 2016 she was traveling with her parents, both of whom were born in Senegal, and they were driving to visit a different school. On the way there, they stopped and asked some locals for directions. The locals obliged and then asked the family for a ride.

In the car, the locals talked about the school in their village and invited Ndoye and her family to visit. “We got there and I was like, ‘Okay, we’re going to help this school,’” says Ndoye.

Khonkhoma was a two-room schoolhouse. “One classroom was in decent physical shape, but all of the desks were broken and falling apart,” says Ndoye. “The second classroom was smaller and not in the best condition. It wasn’t an ideal situation.”

Outside, a blackboard was nailed to the wall of the smaller classroom. A straw roof hung over a makeshift learning space. “The straw helped protect them from the sun, but whenever it rained they could never use that classroom,” says Ndoye. “The kids wouldn’t go to school when it rained.”

Since that 2016 trip, Ndoye has worked to provide resources to Khonkhoma. At first, the operation consisted of Ndoye and her parents sending school supplies and clothes that they collected from family and friends. Modest fundraising success allowed them to donate more impactful items such as new textbooks and desks. Eventually they raised enough money to build a new classroom. In 2019, Ndoye founded The Diamono Project, a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

“I realized that to enact the plans I wanted to enact, I would need more support,” she says. Diamono means “generation” in Wolof, one of Senegal’s two main languages. The name reflects Ndoye’s goal to create meaningful educational improvements for generations of Senegalese students.

Launching a nonprofit is hard work, but Ndoye met the challenges head-on. Navigating bureaucratic complexities and wading through paperwork required legal consultations and the assistance of Christie Marotta, a family friend and a CPA with nonprofit experience. “She told me which forms to file and what to look into,” says Ndoye, noting that Marotta currently serves as the organization’s treasurer.

She recently returned from a visit to Senegal, where she donated funds that will allow Khomakhoma to add electricity to the schoolhouse. For Ndoye, who works full time as an EMT and aspires to attend medical school, leading The Diamono Project is a labor of love rooted in a lifelong value.“My parents taught us that wherever you are, always try to help others,” she says.

At Tabor, Ndoye immersed herself in the performing arts. “It was definitely a place that fostered creativity,” she says. “That has carried over into what I’m doing now. Sometimes you have to come up with a creative solution to a problem, especially when you’re trying to do things on a budget so that more money is going back to the students.”

In a short time, The Diamono Project has made a tangible impact. New classroom materials have created a more productive learning environment that has helped energize the students. “It seemed to really improve their motivation to want to go to school,” says Ndoye. The year after the new classroom was built, Khonkhoma students earned the highest scores in their region on a national exam.

Many Senegalese children leave school after eighth grade in order to help their families—girls typically care for younger siblings and boys often work alongside their fathers—but the school director at Khonkhoma has informed Ndoye that students are increasingly seeking opportunities to attend high school. While the fundraising and building projects have yielded impressive results, it is this trend that Ndoye is most proud of.

“The students want to do better. It’s not just being pushed on them. It’s coming from an internal motivation.” she says. “That’s what makes it worth it, for me at least. It’s almost like I can see where their future would have gone, and now they’re changing pathways and different doors have opened up for them.”