ISF TX - Investing in the Success of Foster Youth

85% of ISF scholars graduate. For young people who grow up in foster care, it is 12%.

Betty has a degree from UT Arlington. This fall she starts a nursing program at Texas Tech.

For a young person who grew up in foster care, that sentence is close to statistically improbable. About 12% of them finish a college degree. Among ISF scholars, 85% do.

The gap is not talent. Betty had that when she arrived. The gap is everything that sits around talent and usually goes missing: someone who notices when a semester is going badly, tuition money that arrives before the deadline instead of after it, and a reason to believe the plan is still on.

Betty says it more plainly. “I couldn’t stop my dreams and play the victim.”

She did not have to make that stand alone. Her mentor is the woman who founded ISF, and who still mentors students herself. Merveille, who came up through the program alongside Betty, has the same mentor. She is studying to become a teacher.

That is what ISF actually is. Not a check that arrives once, but a person who does not leave, plus enough scholarship money to make the tuition math survivable. ISF walks alongside students with lived experience in foster care through college and vocational training – financial help that keeps them enrolled, a one-on-one mentor, and a four-day leadership retreat. In North Texas we are building toward 100 Texas scholars by 2027.

On September 17, your gift puts the next student in that position.

Why Your Gift Matters

You keep students enrolled. Most students do not leave college because of tuition. They leave because of the unexpected – a car repair, a housing gap, a semester of books. Your gift closes those gaps, so one hard month does not end a degree.

You put a mentor in their corner. Every ISF scholar is matched with a mentor who stays for the long haul, through college, career questions and the moments in between. Sometimes that mentor is the founder of the organization. For students who learned early to hold relationships loosely, that steady presence is often what changes the outcome.

You build leaders, not only graduates. At the four-day leadership retreat, students lead teams, present to their peers and answer out loud what kind of leader they want to become. One of them put it this way: “The bonds I made at the retreat will become friends for life.”

Your Gift at Work

• $50 — a month of mentoring and programming for one scholar
• $250 — a scholar’s place at the leadership retreat
• $1,500 — a full year of scholarship for one student

Our Goal

Our North Texas Giving Day goal is $10,000. Every gift moves us closer, and moves another Texas scholar toward the degree they are working for.

Give Today

You do not have to wait for the day itself. Early giving opens Thursday, August 27, 2026 and runs through North Texas Giving Day on Thursday, September 17. Give early, give on the day, and tell one friend who cares about young people in our community.

100 percent of your online gift goes to ISF through Communities Foundation of Texas, which runs North Texas Giving Day. Your support stays here, with students building their futures in North Texas.

ISF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. EIN 20-8665417. Your gift is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.