Our Story
What people can become is worth taking seriously.
The Hoskins Institute is building better ways to develop and recognize human capability through demonstrated performance. We are interested in what people can actually do, how they change through difficult work and what conventional signals sometimes fail to show. Credentials, education, experience and previous opportunity all tell us something about a person. None tells us everything. We are beginning in the workplace because it gives the idea a demanding test. At some point, development has to show up in performance. The question we intend to keep working on is larger: How much ability remains underdeveloped or unseen because the evidence institutions rely on is incomplete?
HOW WE WORK
High standards and respect for people belong together.
The work should be demanding enough to matter. Feedback should be specific enough to use. People should understand what is expected of them and why. We care about evidence because an experience can feel meaningful without producing lasting change. We care about hospitality because preparation, environment and the way people are treated affect how seriously they can engage with difficult work. And we take the long view. The real question is not how someone feels when an experience ends. It is what they are still able to carry when responsibility becomes real.
Founder
Background
Nasaiah Hoskins founded The Hoskins Institute after working across youth leadership, workforce development, nonprofits, civic institutions and public service. He was first appointed at 22 to Pennsylvania’s Governor’s Advisory Commission on African American Affairs and has continued serving under two consecutive governors. His earlier work includes national youth leadership through the NAACP and state-level involvement in workforce development, education and community initiatives. He was born in New York and raised in the Poconos, Pennsylvania. Part of his interest in the Institute’s central question came from his own experience. Hoskins was given significant responsibility early in his career, often before he had followed the conventional sequence normally associated with those rooms. It made him curious about how institutions decide who gets trusted with more, and how many people never receive the opportunity to show what they could handle. Years spent working inside and around institutions made the other side of the question equally visible. Titles, credentials and current positions do not always tell you where someone’s strongest capabilities are or what the right development might make possible. The Hoskins Institute grew from that curiosity. Hoskins was born in New York and raised in the Poconos, Pennsylvania.