The Bond Builder Program
Paving New Roads to Career Success
Our Mission:
We provide career learning and growth opportunities in the marketing, advertising, and commercial creative industry for adults with non-traditional backgrounds.
We’ve found that what most people need to grow and succeed is experience and opportunity – so that’s what we offer.
The Problem
The marketing and advertising industry has long relied on filtering potential employee candidates by requiring a four-year undergraduate degree. However, for many talented people, four-year universities are either inaccessible or not practical. As a result, marketing departments and agencies across the country are left with homogeneous workforces that lack diversity – and are trending in the wrong direction.
Ethnic diversity of the advertising/marketing industry took a step backwards in 2023. The overall ethnic skew declined from 32.3 percent in 2022 to 30.8 percent in 2023 and is significantly below the 42.2 percent ethnic diversity of the U.S. population.
The Opportunity
The marketing and creative industry THRIVES on diversity. It widens the scope of cultural experience in a workforce and brings fresh, new perspectives to an industry that demands newness. By creating a pathway for talented people with transferable skills to enter the industry, we’re injecting diversity into the workforce that has tangible outcomes.
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76% of employees and job seekers report that a diverse workforce is an important factor when evaluating companies and job offers.
– GLASSDOOR
%
A diverse workforce is a priority for 67% of job seekers when deciding where to work.
– ZIPPA
%
32% of employees and job seekers would not apply to a job at a company where there is a lack of diversity among its workforce.
– GLASSDOOR
%
Companies that were in the top 25% for racial and ethnic diversity were 36% more likely to financially outperform their industry median.
– MCKINSEY
How It Works
Put simply, we do great work for our clients and use it to teach others. As projects come into our agency, we set aside time with select individuals to let them experience how we manage and develop work for our clients. They get exposure to different aspects of our industry – accounts, creative, strategy, media, production, etc. – and we look for opportunities to grow and apply their talent when the time is right.
Participants engage on their own schedule and at their own pace. There is no expectation of contribution or mandate for their involvement and they are not graded or evaluated. They grow and learn on their own terms.
The goal is to create tangible resume and portfolio experience that can lead participants into their first full-time position in the industry.
Our Participants
We look for adult and young adult participants who have transferable skills to our industry. This can come in many forms and is highly individualized. Most importantly, we seek people who are committed to succeeding in the marketing, advertising, and commercial creative industry.
For now, our participants come to us by word-of-mouth or through our professional networks. We hope to expand this program in the future to serve cohorts of participants on an ongoing basis. Stay tuned.