Improve Your Tomorrow (IYT)

In addition to its mentoring work, IYT engages in political activism through its 1300 Campaign, which seeks to boost Black and Hispanic college graduation rates through left-of-center political and education changes, including mandatory implicit bias training for high school students and enacting a moratorium on school suspensions. ^{2 3}

Activity

Improve Your Tomorrow provides mentorship programs to support Black and Hispanic men through the education system. Its program covers 12 years, starting in middle school and ending two years after graduation from college with a fellowship. ¹ In 2024, IYT served 6,000 students. ⁴

IYT’s services are divided between four programs: mentor fellowships, IYT College Academy, IYT University, and IYT College Academy. ¹

According to IYT, its services significantly increase the graduation rate of Black and Hispanic students. In California, from 2016 to 2022, 70 percent of Black students and 77 percent of Hispanic students graduated from high school, compared to 99 percent and 100 percent respectively for IYT students. In the same state and time frame, 54 percent of Black students and 52 percent of Hispanic students attended college compared to 78 percent of Black and Hispanic IYT students. 33 percent of Black and 36 percent of Hispanic students graduated from college compared to 57 percent and 59 percent of IYT students respectively. ¹

Activism

Improve Your Tomorrow’s 1300 Campaign, launched in 2020, encourages the local and city governments of Sacramento County and California’s northern Central Valley to adopt policies designed to increase college graduation rates for Black and Hispanic men. The group’s name, 1300 Campaign, is a reference to the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution and IYT’s goal of sending 1,300 additional young Black and Hispanic men to each state school in the two regions. According to the campaign, the low rate of college participation of Black and Hispanic men is attributable to “institutionalized racism, oppression, and racial inequities” in the U.S. which are a result of a clause in the 13th Amendment that permits forced labor for incarcerated individuals, thereby perpetuating the American carceral state which oppresses Black and Hispanic men. ^{2 3}

IYT’s specific policy goals include integrating University of California curriculum admission requirements into standard high school curriculums, adding more “ethnic studies” classes, adding more counselors and mentorship programs to high schools, developing an “Organizational Racial Equity Assessment Tool,” instituting mandatory Implicit Bias Training for high school personnel, enacting a moratorium on high school suspensions, and instituting “culturally responsive pedagogy.” ^{5 3}

Controversy

In June 2025, Defending Education, a right-of-center organization that opposes the teaching of critical race theory and related left-wing ideologies in K-12 public schools, published a research report entitled “DividED,” which examined the development of “race and sex-based programming” in California public schools with the assistance of consulting groups. The report found that over $20 million in federal funds had been spent on such programs. ⁶

Improve Your Tomorrow was highlighted by the report as a major beneficiary of race-based education programs. From 2016 to 2025, the organization earned “$30,145,711 in revenue from district contracts, federal grant funding, and state grant funding to operate ‘young men of color’ programming in 17 public school districts since 2016.” About one-third of this revenue came from federal funding through the AmeriCorps program. ⁶

For instance, in 2024, the Elk Grove Unified School District signed a $2,738,610 contract with Improve Your Tomorrow using federal Title I funds, a program designed to support low-income students. The Natomas Unified School District paid Improve Your Tomorrow $2,549,600 from 2016 through 2025, including $384,000 of federal Title I funds. The Osseo Area Schools paid Improve Your Tomorrow $450,000 for a three-year contract. ⁶

Funding

In 2023, Improve Your Tomorrow reported $10,583,814 in revenue with $6.3 million coming from charitable grants and $4.3 million from program services. $3,693,447 of IYT’s revenue came from government sources. In 2022, IYT earned $7.4 million in revenue with $1,898,694 derived from government sources; in 2021, IYT earned $3,117,015 with $919,690 derived from government sources, and in 2020, IYT earned $3,913,062 with $1,351,480 derived from government sources. ^{7 8}

Leadership

Improve Your Tomorrow was co-founded and is led by Michael Lynch. Lynch grew up in poverty and a broken home but credits the support of his parents and eventual stepmother to bringing him success in life. He became involved in activism from a young age, working as a government relations fellow at Campaign for Youth Justice and a graduate student assistant at the California State Board of Equalization in 2011. From 2012 to 2016, Lynch served as a senior legislative aide for then California Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles). ^{1 9}