Helping Young People Realize Their Magic
Act Six, a scholarship and leadership program, has prepared diverse leaders to succeed in college and serve their communities for over twenty years. In 2024, because of financial challenges facing higher education institutions, the current 400+ Act Six scholars still enrolled at partner institutions will be the program’s last classes. But from the first scholar to the last, the impact continues.
Act Six Northwest Director Lex Nicholson and Act Six explains both from her perspective as a program leader and as an alumna. “It’s important that students feel seen and know they are valued,” she says. “Investing in them is investing in a broader future.”
In 2008, a College Spark grant supported Act Six’s expansion. Several years later, Nicholson learned about the program when an Act Six representative came to her high school. Growing up in a military family, she’d moved around a lot. The Act Six cohort model appealed to her, as it selected at least seven students from each high school who would share the experience of applying and attending college together.
After the selection process, Nicholson and her cadre, who would become like family, began their journey together. The experience would change her life. “My favorite thing about Act Six is that familial piece,” she says. You have people who are going to carry you through start to finish.”
“It’s important that students feel seen and know they are valued. Investing in them is investing in a broader future.”
A Village Mentality
One of the reasons the program has been so impactful for scholars is because of its interconnected approach. “When the former founder and CEO Tim Heron created Act Six, he focused on the idea that it takes a village and that’s the way I grew up, with a village mentality,” says Nicholson. “It can’t just be one organization supporting students.”
Act Six initially launched under the Northwest Leadership Foundation, which no longer exists. Degrees of Change was founded in 2011 to continue to scale the Act Six program. At its peak, the program had 17 college partners across the country.
As the program supports its final group of students, Degrees of Change, based in Tacoma, serves as the national office for the Act Six regions. In addition, an affiliate organization houses each Act Six program, such as the YMCA in Spokane and the Yakima Community Foundation in the Yakima Valley.
Beyond that structure, the organization and its affiliates collaborate with community organizations, high schools, colleges and employers to ensure that the students have leadership training, college success support, and career development programming that will serve them wherever they go.
Strengths That Already Exist
A critical piece of Degrees of Change and Act Six has been the understanding that they aren’t turning students into leaders, they are nurturing leadership skills that students already have. Ninety-one percent of Act Six scholars are students of color, and 90% are first-generation or low-income. “We wholeheartedly believe the leadership in our communities is already there,” says Nicholson. “Students already know so much through lived experience.”
Building on those strengths, the program has provided tools and networks. It also supports identity work that helps students forge a meaningful path. “Students home in on their superpower so they can see themselves being those people who initiate change in their communities,” Nicholson says.
Examples of alumni using their superpowers in the world include Tacoma Poet Laureate Christian Page. “He’s in the school system doing leadership and DEI training, breathing and speaking life into the next generation,” says Nicholson. Amber Ortiz-Diaz used to run the Act Six program in the Yakima Valley and now works in the Washington State Office of Equity, moving inclusion work forward.
There are also many alumni working within the Act Six organization. “Including our board at Degrees of Change and our staff, 38 percent are alumni who have come full circle,” says Nicholson.
As she and her colleagues focus on supporting the last class of Act Six scholars, Nicholson reflects on the experience. “It wasn’t until people circled and wrapped their arms around me and reminded me that I’m a leader and have done all these things that I really understood my potential,” she says. “And now I’m part of this expanding village making that happen for others.”
After the current scholars graduate, that expansion will take on different forms. In the meantime, Degrees of Change invites investment in this group. Just beginning or partway through their college journeys, they’ll soon join their fellow alumni in a world that needs their magic.
