Stepstone Initiative

Increasing accessibility and affordability in higher education and improving the college experience for students at campuses across the country is core to the mission of Capstone Development Partners (CDP). The continually rising cost of education is an ongoing, increasingly important challenge. As part of our company’s 2019 strategic planning retreat, the Principals and staff of CDP overwhelmingly noted affordability as the single greatest challenge to students desiring a post-secondary education — now and in the future.  Further illustrating the financial pressures on today’s students is the continued research performed by the Hope Center, indicating a substantial percentage of students, attending both 2 and 4-year colleges, face food or housing insecurity, or homelessness.  The results of our company discussion around affordability in higher education, and what our company can do to positively impact rising education and housing costs, particularly for students most in need, was the creation of the Stepstone Initiative.

Stepstone is a program focused on the creation and funding of student scholarships by CDP and our project teams and administered by partner institutions. The initiative was seed funded with $100,000 by the Principals of CDP in 2019. Stepstone is designed to be an ongoing and sustainable initiative with the initial funding annually augmented through a contribution of a percentage of CDP profits. The intent is that Stepstone provides seed funding to individual college and university scholarships at a level that incentivizes additional contributions from Capstone’s partners and team members.  The scholarships are to be managed and distributed by colleges and university foundations or administrations to students who have the most compelling need.

As a company, we at Capstone work every day to improve the lives of college students across the country on the campuses of large and small, public and private universities with which we are fortunate to partner.  As an extension of our business philosophy and values, Stepstone recognizes and helps address the financial challenges that many students must overcome to obtain a college education. Providing students affordability and accessibility to an education, and safe, comfortable housing, is a responsibility that we take seriously when we develop student residential communities. Now, through Stepstone, we can continue to fulfill our mission and the needs of our university partners, and their students,  even after a project is delivered. By partnering with institutions and our design, construction and financial team members, and leveraging public and private sector resources, we hope and believe that through Stepstone, we can collectively make a significant positive difference for students desiring a quality, life-enhancing higher education who might otherwise be financially challenged to do so.  We invite anyone interested in learning more about, or joining with us in our Stepstone Initiative, to contact us at info@capdevpartners.com.