Out & About
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A Surer Bet
Steve Klinsky’s experience as a sponsor in the Student Sponsor Partners program moved him to become more involved in education philanthropy.
Sixteen years ago, the organization paired him with 9th grader Shawn Lane, to whom he would provide financial and emotional support during his four years of high school.
While Shawn was still in high school, Mr. Klinsky, the founder and chief executive of New Mountain Capital, founded the Gary Klinsky Children’s Centers, providing after-school programs to 700 New York City schoolchildren in what he describes as “fun, academic clubhouses right in the schools.”
By 1999, having seen Shawn graduate from high school and college, he founded two charter schools and a company to run them. Victory Schools now manages 15 schools with a combined enrollment of 7,000.
Shawn has not only taught at one of the charter schools, he now works at the company, Mr. Klinsky announced Thursday at the Student Sponsor Partners annual gala, which raised more than $2 million.
Student Sponsor Partners has shaped the lives of its participating students even more noticeably, as demonstrated by the two alumni who spoke at the event.
Robert Spencer, who grew up in the Bronx, spent two years in the eighth grade before attending Cardinal Hayes High School through Student Sponsor Partners, and then Duke University. He is now a vice president for Goldman Sachs Japan, Ltd., in Tokyo.
Jennifer Ortiz is a graduate of St. Pius V High School in the Bronx, where she ranked at the top of her class all four years, and Columbia University. Her sponsor arranged summer internships, SAT preparatory classes, and practice job interviews. She is now married with a two-month-old daughter, Kaelynn, and plans to return to her job as a business analyst at Ascend.
“My grandmother and my sponsor were the ultimate tag team,” Ms. Ortiz said. She especially appreciated the transportation her sponsor arranged when Ms. Ortiz first came to visit at her downtown offices: a Lincoln Town Car. “[The driver] rode all the way from the tip of Manhattan to the Bronx. It must have been an expensive car ride, but boy did I feel special.”
