Empowering Students Through
Mentorship and Academic Support
Our Story
Aspire Education Project (Aspire) was founded in 2005 to bring out-of-school, high quality academic support to students who lack ready access to private tutoring. Since our founding, Aspire has provided effective supplemental education programming to over 22,000 Bay Area students by connecting them to a small community of educators and mentors stocked with content expertise and emotional intelligence. Today, the mission of Aspire Education is to provide transformational educational mentorship for every student in the Bay Area. we help students from historically underserved backgrounds develop the confidence, skills, and support network they need to succeed in school and in life.
Our Mission
The mission of Aspire Education is to provide transformational educational mentorship for every
student in the Bay Area. Our work is driven by the conviction that, while potential is equally distributed
across lines of race and class, opportunity is not – and we work every day to change that.
Our team of highly skilled and emotionally intelligent educators supports students through
personalized, equity-driven academic programs. From math support that opens career pathways to
test prep that launches first-generation college students, Aspire partners with families and
nonprofits to close opportunity gaps and unlock student potential.
Our Services
Tutoring for Schools: We collaborate with schools and community-based organizations to deliver high-quality, customized tutoring and academic support—designed especially for historically underserved students. Aspire’s programs are built to deliver real results, combining academic rigor with the power of mentorship.
Tutoring for Families: Through a team of tutors stocked with content expertise and emotional intelligence, we provide high-quality academic assistance to individual students and families on a sliding scale fee basis.
Community Reading Buddies: Our unique dual-impact program improves early literacy outcomes by mobilizing Bay Area young adults to mentor younger students in literacy and ignite them with a passion for reading.
Our Values
Students First
Continuous Learning
Fighting for Equity
In everything we do, our top priority is to empower our students to grow in confidence, competence, and grit. We make every decision and measure every outcome based on how well it prepares our students for college, career, and a life of learning.
Education doesn’t stop with our students. As an organization, we seek out feedback from a diverse range of sources and take informed risks to improve our impact towards educational equity.
Aspire exists to fight for educational equity alongside our partners and community leaders. We are dedicated to interrupting patterns of inequity in our community, with the shared vision that all young people should have the opportunity for equally high outcomes without regard to where they start in life.
Our Impact
20,000+
students served since 2007
800+
reading buddies & mentors each year
6,500+
hours volunteered through Community Reading Buddies each year
Our Program Partners
Our Funders
Our Locations Across the Bay
Aspire partners with schools and fellow nonprofits throughout the Bay to provide high quality academic support to students who most need it. With program locations throughout San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, and the Peninsula, our presence – and our impact – are growing.
Meet the Team
Learn more about the staff and
tutors who make our work possible.
Join the Cause
Whether as a mentor, partner, or
tutor, there are many ways to get
involved and support our mission.
Donate
Invest in educational equity. Your gift empowers Bay Area students through high-impact tutoring and mentorship.