DOC CARES Inc. · Dallas, Texas · 501(c)(3) Nonprofit

"There are a lot of ways you can look out for your city — but it takes an artist to create what is missing."

Tracy "The D.O.C." Curry — Founder & CEO, DOC CARES · Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

Explore DEA → Partner With Us See the Results
The Platform

Removing Barriers
to Inclusive
Prosperity.

DOC CARES is a national nonprofit platform founded by Tracy "The D.O.C." Curry — Dallas native, Grammy Lifetime Achievement recipient, and community architect. Less than three years old. Built to scale. Designed to last.

We do not operate one program. We are building an institution.

01
Active ↓

Education &
Workforce Development

Dreams Experience Academy equips grades 7–12 with pathways into the $3T Media, Entertainment & Technology sectors. Always free. Community-rooted. Nationally replicable.

02
Launch

Civic & Community
Engagement

Cross-sector civic partnerships and measurable community participation outcomes. Strategic framework and pilot programming in development.

03
Launch

Violence
Interruption

Community-informed intervention strategy with aligned funding, targeted pilot initiatives, and partnerships with organizations already working in this space.

04
Launch

Financial
Equity

Financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and wealth-building pathways. Partnerships across banking and business sectors anchoring this vertical.

Our Manifesto

Dreaming is the spark that ignites and propels us toward our young peoples' bright futures. A future that all of our youth deserve to see themselves within.

"

"When we are encouraged to dream, the world feels different. When we experience our dreams, the world becomes ours."

"

"What if the dreams of the underestimated are the essential ingredient for progress?"

"

"Dreams. Experience. For far too many young people, it's what's missing."

DEA — Education & Workforce Development

Dreams
Experience
Academy

A 501(c)(3) community-driven platform providing learning certifications and revenue-generating opportunities, dedicated to built for under-championed young people in grades 7–12 with the skills and pathways to thrive in the $3 trillion Media, Entertainment, and Technology sector.

🎬

Media & Entertainment

Real-world production, content creation, and industry certifications

💻

Technology Pathways

Coding, digital tools, and tech career pipeline programs

📈

Revenue-Generating Skills

Entrepreneurship, branding, and financial independence

🌍

Community-Rooted

Built in Dallas. Designed to be nationally replicable. Always free.

Support Dreams Experience Academy →
DEA
Dreams Experience Academy

"We are more interested in the pipeline to prosperity."

— Dreams Experience Academy Brand Manifesto
DEA — The Challenge

THREE CRISES.
ONE SOLUTION.

The communities Dreams Experience Academy serves face converging, measurable challenges. Each one is addressable. Together, they demand a new kind of institution — not a single program, but a platform. None of this is a failure of teachers or schools — it is a gap no single institution was built to close alone, which is why DEA works on our partners’ campuses rather than around them.

PROBLEM 01 — SKILLS GAP
<25%

Of traditional curricula prepares students for a career — let alone their dream one.

Source: YouScience 2024

01
PROBLEM 02 — ABSENTEEISM
46%

Of students in parts of Southern Dallas are chronically absent. But even nationally this crisis averages 28%.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Education / For Oak Cliff, 2024

02
PROBLEM 03 — VISIBILITY
1 in 16

Students named game design as a career before DEA. A career you cannot see is a career you cannot choose.

Source: DEA intake survey, independently administered by Big Thought, Summer 2025 (n≈16)

03
DEA — Proof of Concept · 2025 Summer Game Design Pilot

GOALS SET.
GOALS SURPASSED.

Empowering under-championed youth through game design, mentorship, and career exploration. Program-market fit achieved.

DEA has since run eight cohorts across three academic terms — growing from 25 students in this pilot to 30+ in Spring 2026 across St. Philip’s School & Community Center and two Texans Can Academies campuses. The figures below are from the independently evaluated 2025 pilot.

100%

Core pilot goals met or exceeded

Across both 2025 pilot cohorts — 25 students

8.9/10

Student referral rating

Would recommend Dreams Experience Academy to their peers — no detractors

NPS 60

"Excellent" Net Promoter Score

Considered U.S. best practice

50+

Hours of training & mentorship delivered

Older cohort; 20+ hours to younger cohort

13%

Were out of full-time school and intend to re-enroll

Of the pilot’s 15-student evaluation group (those attending 80%+ of sessions), 2 reported they were not enrolled in K–12 full-time in 2024–25 but intend to enroll in 2025–26. Student-reported intent on exit.

★★★★★

"Outstanding" student engagement

Six Dimensions of Quality methodology

"I feel like my interest in Game Design changed more than my understanding. I started having fun and making an effort to be here."

DEA Student — Summer 2025

"Dreams Experience Academy allowed me to make new friends, I met important people like Dr. Dre, and I found an interest in gaming that I didn't know existed."

DEA Student — Summer 2025

"I can see myself doing this and being successful in it."

DEA Student — Summer 2025

"On my first day, a student interrupted me to say she was not interested in game design. A few weeks later, she was glowing. All we'd done is consistently show her that her ideas were valuable."

DEA Faculty — Summer 2025
Innovation in Education Award
D Magazine / Dallas Innovates — 2025
Keynote Speaker
Yale Innovation Summit — 2025 & 2026
Keynote Speaker
Dallas Regional Chamber Tomorrow Summit — 2025
DEA — Proof of Model · Spring 2026

WE LEARNED EXACTLY
WHAT IT TAKES.

Spring 2026 grew to 30+ students across St. Philip’s School & Community Center and two Texans Can Academies campuses. It also gave us something more valuable than growth: the conditions the program requires, measured across four cohorts.

BELOW THE THRESHOLD, DEA IS AN ACTIVITY.
ABOVE IT, DEA IS AN INTERVENTION.

0

≤ 5 hours

No measurable growth

7.5

6–8 hours

Threshold crossed

8.8

≥ 9 hours

Full activation

Average student-rated impact score (1–10) by hours of direct instruction.

WE RAN FOUR COHORTS. THE ONES THAT WORKED SHARE THREE THINGS.

Cohort Session Cohort stability Site conditions Reached dose
For Oak Cliff · Sum ’252 hrsStableIn place100%
St. Philip’s · Spr ’26School-day blockStableIn place100%
Moorland YMCA · Sum ’251 hrRotatingNot scoped50%
Texans Can · Spr ’26VariableVariableNot scoped40%

St. Philip’s students were placed in the program, exactly like the YMCA students — and 100% reached dose. Placement isn’t the failure condition. Instability is. We learned it twice, in two program years, under two independent evaluations. Where site support wasn’t scoped, priced and funded, students didn’t reach dose — and scoping it was our job, not our partners’. These conditions weren’t recommended to us. We derived them, and every DEA engagement is now costed to create them.

8.1 → 7.9

Two years. Two evaluations. The same result.

Student-rated program impact, Summer 2025 and Spring 2026. Different students, different sites, different delivery models — independently measured a year apart.

CORE
CURRICULUM

St. Philip’s adopted DEA in its first term with us

Not after a trial run. TEKS alignment is what lets the work count inside the school system rather than beside it.

Building Alongside Us

Our Partners

Mission-aligned institutions, foundations, corporations, and cultural figures building alongside us

Dallas Regional Chamber
Civic · Business
The Dallas Foundation
Philanthropy
TD Jakes Foundation
Foundation
Eugene McDermott Foundation
Foundation
Dallas Mavericks Foundation
Sports · Entertainment
Bosque Ranch Productions / Taylor Sheridan
Cultural · Corporate
Big Thought
Education · Arts
GameSquare Holdings
Gaming · Media
Dude Perfect
Media · Entertainment
YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas
Community
St. Philip's School & Community Center
Education · Community
For Oak Cliff
Community
Dallas ISD
Education
Frontiers of Flight Museum
Cultural · Education
I Am Other / Pharrell Williams
Cultural · Creative
Snoop Dogg
Artist · Investor
Dr. Dre
Artist · Producer
Erykah Badu
Artist · Cultural Leader
Vela Wood
Legal · Advisory
Gannett Partners
Venture · Advisory
InterBank
Commercial Banking
Become a Partner
Curriculum Alliances
NYU Game Center
Academic · Gaming
NYU Tisch / Clive Davis Institute
Academic · Music
Howard University — Chadwick Boseman Fine Arts
Academic · Arts
Dallas College
Academic · Workforce
Become a Partner
Leadership + Board

LEADERSHIP
& BOARD

DOC CARES operates under a Founder/CEO + Executive Director model, supported by a board representing the intersection of culture, capital, and community.

Tracy The D.O.C. Curry
Founder & CEO — DOC CARES & Dreams Experience Academy
Tracy
"The D.O.C."
Curry

Grammy Lifetime Achievement recipient. Pioneering hip-hop lyricist. West Dallas native who came home to build what was missing. Tracy founded DOC CARES from a single conviction: the most important investment in a community is the one made in its young people — before a crisis, not after. Through the eyes of an artist.

Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award West Dallas Native Yale Innovation Summit 2025 & 2026 D CEO Innovation Award 2025Death Row Records Co-founder
Board
Chris Gannett
Board — Founding President
CEO, Gannett:Partners — Yale Ventures EIR — Harvard McLean Coaching Fellow
LinkedIn ↗
Brendan Donnelly
Board
Bosque Ranch / Taylor Sheridan — CIO & CFO
LinkedIn ↗
Kelley Cornish
Board
TD Jakes Foundation — CEO
LinkedIn ↗
Latosha Herron-Bruff
Board
Dallas Regional Chamber — SVP, Opportunity & Impact
LinkedIn ↗
Pamela Zeigler-Petty
Board
InterBank — Director of Community Development Banking
LinkedIn ↗
Jacques Vroom
Board
Vroom Group — CEO
LinkedIn ↗
Advisors
Erykah Badu
Advisor
Godmother of Neo-Soul. Artist, activist, and Dallas icon.
Website ↗
Partner
Support Us Through Partnership & Donation

Build the
Future
With Us.

DOC CARES is actively seeking corporate sponsors, individual donors, philanthropic foundations, and civic partners. Your investment directly funds free programming, industry certifications, and generational opportunity.

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