Our Story
In 1984 (over 40years ago!), ZF began granting a modest scholarship to one student, for each year of their 4 years of college. Public websites, social media, cell phones didn’t exist; a mission statement & logo was a far-off thought. We just wanted to help students get a college education and believed this would be a catalyst for their career and life experiences.
As we’ve passed through these years, we discovered and learned that affordability was key to our students' post-college success, that coaching could be a catalyst for our students’ understanding affordability and
how to launch into their careers. We declared our mission statement: Helping Students Become Effective
Adults. We then got a logo and we launched a website.
We now grant 35+ scholarships a year and have 14 volunteer Coaches who are committed to our students. Our scholarship-coaching program is impactful and we want to expand it but never to a size that compromises the personal student-coach relationship. So, the question became: Where and how can ZF increase our impact and add value?
We looked at many of the challenges facing our community and discovered a common thread:
lack of leadership. We discovered our pathway and expanded our mission: “Helping students become effective adults and inspired leaders.”
We believe that most people possess the potential to be inspired leaders whether in their family,
community, workplace or otherwise. As we help our students develop into leaders, we teach, coach and practice a simple life process of Discover. Choose. Live. (DCL). The yellow path of our logo is a symbol for each of our personal paths - our Yellow Brick Roads. We believe that each road is built through the process of discovery, making informed choices, and living those choices. We are excited about how our new logo and mission truly symbolize who we are trying to become. Our hope is that the DCL process helps us unleash our students' leadership potential.
As we’ve passed through these years, we discovered and learned that affordability was key to our students' post-college success, that coaching could be a catalyst for our students’ understanding affordability and
how to launch into their careers. We declared our mission statement: Helping Students Become Effective
Adults. We then got a logo and we launched a website.
We now grant 35+ scholarships a year and have 14 volunteer Coaches who are committed to our students. Our scholarship-coaching program is impactful and we want to expand it but never to a size that compromises the personal student-coach relationship. So, the question became: Where and how can ZF increase our impact and add value?
We looked at many of the challenges facing our community and discovered a common thread:
lack of leadership. We discovered our pathway and expanded our mission: “Helping students become effective adults and inspired leaders.”
We believe that most people possess the potential to be inspired leaders whether in their family,
community, workplace or otherwise. As we help our students develop into leaders, we teach, coach and practice a simple life process of Discover. Choose. Live. (DCL). The yellow path of our logo is a symbol for each of our personal paths - our Yellow Brick Roads. We believe that each road is built through the process of discovery, making informed choices, and living those choices. We are excited about how our new logo and mission truly symbolize who we are trying to become. Our hope is that the DCL process helps us unleash our students' leadership potential.