Welcome to the Encourage College & Career Planning Program!
We’re thrilled to partner with you in preparing every student for life after graduation. Encourage is more than a tool—it’s a powerful way to connect students with meaningful opportunities and help them build a clear, confident path forward.
This quick-start toolkit is designed to help you make the most of your Educator Account.
Inside, you’ll find everything you need to:
- Ensure Encourage domains are allowed by your school's IT department for seamless account creation for you and your students
- Invite students to join the Encourage App
- Implement our ready-to-use lesson plans with your students
- Explore real-time data through reports and dashboards
Whether you're just getting started or looking to deepen your impact, this toolkit will support you in creating a future-ready culture at your school. Let’s get started!
Add Encourage Domains to Your IT Allowlist
Ensure access by sharing the Encourage IT Allowlist
To ensure students and educators can easily access Encourage and receive email invites, we recommend sharing our Encourage Allowlist with your IT department.
An allowlist is a list of trusted domains and email addresses that your school or district approves to bypass spam filters and security blocks.
Why it matters:
- Students receive their activation emails without delay
- No blocked access to Encourage features or resources
- Smooth onboarding for educators and students
To make your request easier, download and send this pre-written email to your IT team, which includes the full list of domains to allow.
Choose Your Starting Point
Start with impact in mind
Whether you’re launching Encourage with one grade level, a specific program, or your entire student body, the key is to start where you can make the biggest difference with the support and bandwidth you currently have. Here are a few approaches other educators recommend to help you decide:
Option 1: Start with Seniors or Juniors
These students are closest to making postsecondary decisions and can benefit immediately from college matches, scholarship searches, and career exploration.
Option 2: Begin with 8th–10th Graders
Start building a strong foundation early with your middle or early high schoolers. Use Encourage to support goal setting, career exploration, life skills, and early planning conversations.
Option 3: Target Specific Groups
Start small with student leadership programs, CTE pathways, AVID, Gear Up, or other advisory groups. This can help you pilot usage and gather success stories.
Still unsure where to begin? Try this quick worksheet to help you determine your best fit based on your school or program needs.
Invite Your Students
Help students get started on their college and career journey
Encourage works best when your students are connected. Now that your educator account is active, it’s time to invite students to the Encourage App where they’ll build profiles and start exploring colleges, careers, majors, and scholarship opportunities.
Start small, see big impact. To make it simple, we recommend beginning with just a handful of students—about five. Why five? It’s a manageable group size to try out the process, see Encourage in action, and give you quick wins you can build on. Once you’ve seen the impact, it’s easy to invite more students and expand from there.
Watch this short tutorial to see how easy it is to send student invites:
Then, use our tracker to keep tabs on your first five students as they get started:
Explore Reports and Dashboards
Turn insights into action with real-time data
Now that your students are connected, you can unlock Encourage’s reporting features to gain visibility into their interests and readiness.
Here’s a quick guide to making the most of the data available to you:
My Students
What It Shows:
- A peak into what your students are planning after high school based on their activity in the Encourage app and/or responses on the College & Career Preference forms
Use It When:
- You’re preparing for 1:1 meetings, parent conferences, or individualized graduation or learning plans
Top 3 Things to Focus On:
- Postsecondary goals
- Saved majors, careers, and interests
- Matched colleges and scholarships
Use our conversation guide aligned with ASCA-recommended talking points to support meaningful student engagement to kickstart your next student meeting.
College & Career Planning Dashboard
What It Shows:
Grade-level trends and school-wide readiness
Use It When:
- You’re planning for college fairs, advisory programming, or school improvement initiatives
Top 3 Things to Focus On:
- Postsecondary plans of students in your school
- Trends by grade or subgroup
- Gaps in planning or career exposure
Use our Dashboard Tips for more ideas on how to incorporate this dashboard into your planning and student support strategy.
Ready-Made Lesson Plans
Flexible, future-ready lesson plans—use what works for you!
There’s no set sequence, so you can use any one of our Encourage lesson plans to supplement or strengthen your current college and career programming.
Try using lesson plans:
- During advisory or homeroom for bite-sized, skill-building activities
- In career prep or life skills classes to build self-awareness and planning confidence
- After a student survey or planning meeting to guide next steps
Lesson Plans Help Students:
- Set short- and long-term college/career goals
- Understand their values, interests, and strengths
- Build confidence navigating scholarships and financial aid
- Strengthen essential skills like decision-making, resilience, and advocacy
Our Essential Skills and Core Skills lesson plans are designed for students in 8-12th grade. Log in to your educator account and start exploring your options today!
Putting It All Together
Create a culture of future readiness
Every student deserves to graduate with confidence and a clear path forward. With Encourage, you’re equipping students with tools, insights, and support to explore their options and pursue their goals.
This toolkit is just the beginning. Whether you’re inviting students, exploring dashboards, leading lessons, or sharing results, you’re building a future-ready culture that empowers every learner.
We’re here to support you every step of the way. Thank you for being a champion for students and for making college and career planning more intentional, accessible, and impactful.
