Why every number on this site has a footnote

We ask companies for money on the strength of an argument. The argument is built on numbers. If a company cannot check the numbers, it should not give, and we would not blame it.

So every statistic on this site carries a numbered reference to a named source. For journal articles we cite the DOI, the permanent identifier that the Crossref registry resolves to the article, and we checked each one against that registry before publishing. For reports and surveys we link to the publisher's own page. We requested every external link and removed any that failed.

What that looks like in practice

Take one claim we make often: students with paid internships average 1.61 job offers and students with unpaid internships average 0.94.¹ Follow the footnote and you reach the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which ran the survey. You can read the same numbers we did.

What we do not claim

We do not claim that our funding caused a student's later success. The studies we cite compare researchers with matched non-researchers, and none of them is a randomized trial. We say so on the evidence page. We also do not claim decision influence or outcomes we cannot show. A funder who reads our impact pages should find every claim traceable, and every gap named.

Why this matters for a small organization

A large nonprofit has an audit, a board, and a brand. We have a few students and a record. The record is only worth something if it can be checked, so we make it checkable. The sources page lists every source we cite and shows where it appears.

Sources

1. National Association of Colleges and Employers. Position statement: U.S. internships. Reports results of the NACE 2022 Student Survey. naceweb.org

Sources checked September 21, 2026. See every source we cite.