We recently connected with Pareeni Shah and have shared our conversation below.

Pareeni, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I have always believed that coming up with an idea starts off with thinking about what you are passionate about, and the impact you want to make on your passion. Purpose starts with finding this passion and identifying how you can contribute to it. Find something that interests you in learning and pursuing it in the long run, not just the short term. From that, start taking action in your own way and customizing your approach in this topic. Personally, I was always extremely interested in learning about refugee families around the world and was heartbroken to learn about thousands of families being forced to flee their homes every year. As I grew up, I knew I wanted to help this community and find a way to bridge the gap for them by offering academic support and mentorship. Being introduced to a refugee family during my junior year of high school confirmed this passion for me, as I saw them struggling to stay healthy and excel in school while being on government food stamps, low security and safety measures in their community, and extremely limited access to academic resources, such as being in a poor school district and not having any tutoring / guidance available. Meeting this family, I saw the high potential of their kids and how much they could benefit from a program that helps them with school subjects, teaches them about global current events, and offers them mentorship. This visit is when the tutoring program took off, and grew as more and more families heard about it and as we started to work with other nonprofits with similar missions of helping disadvantaged students excel.

Pareeni, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hello! My name is Pareeni Shah and I am the Founder / CEO of Inspire NextGen. Inspire NextGen is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization focused on tutoring and mentoring disadvantaged students who have come to the US from various countries around the world. Our organization tutors 5-17 year old students living in states across the US such as Texas, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania every Sunday morning via Zoom. Our tutors are high school and college students and recent college grads from a variety of schools / universities around Texas, such as Allen ISD, SMU, UT Austin, UT Arlington, etc. Each tutoring session focuses on teaching our students about international current events to keep them up to date on their surroundings and guide them to being knowledgeable leaders, as well as a variety of math, science, and English worksheets to help them excel academically, and a series of educational games to encourage the students to interact with each other and form connections among one another. The most rewarding aspect of our organization is getting to seeing the growth of all our students throughout the years and the special bonds our tutors create with them. Many of our students have been a part of our program for the last three to four years and have not only made significant academic improvements, but have also gained tremendous amounts of confidence.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Partnering with similar non-profits in the Dallas area has been a tremendous help for us in finding new students to tutor in a variety of subjects as well as learn more about the community of disadvantaged students and truly earning an opportunity to find new ways to guide countless students towards academic success. Recently, through working with the SMU Board Fellows Program, Inspire NextGen formed a partnership with Vogel Alcove, a Dallas based non-profit focused on helping families come out of homelessness and poverty, to provide STEM related academic guidance for students enrolled in 2024 summer enrichment programs in the DFW metroplex. In addition, we have also recently partnered with melody of hope, a Dallas based non-profit advocating and supporting other non-profits through hosting large scale music programs. Additionally, word of mouth communication with different communities has been an extremely impactful method of meeting new students. Most of our refugee students come from backgrounds where they often don’t have social media or many technological devices, but they live in big neighborhoods or communities with many other refugees, who have come to the US at a similar time as them and have oftentimes come from the same country. All the families in these communities have seen how inspire NextGen has helped their students and then have spread the word of Inspire NextGen to others that could benefit, which is how we’ve been lucky enough to tutor students in different states across the nation.

Any advice for managing a team?

When managing a team of several volunteers, board members, and advisors, my best piece of advice is to form personal 1:1 relationships with everyone. Having a relationship oriented personality has been my biggest blessing in connecting with everyone on my team, as I’ve learned the importance of personally investing in everyone you work with. The personal relationship not only allows for a more cohesive and productive working environment, but it builds more trust, fun, and reliance among everyone, as you learn that the relationships are not just transactional, but can be taken and grown in and outside of Inspire NextGen tasks. When connecting with your team, ask questions that show your genuine interest in THEM, not just regarding your work with them, and show them that you are a friend in and outside of a professional setting. Encouraging this sense of investment, appreciativeness, and teamwork has helped us maintain a high morale and stay motivated to open new doors and continue working towards this shared passion.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://inspirenextgen.org/
• Instagram: @inspire.nextgen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspire-nextgen/

Image Credits
Caitlyn Sell